


Twilight 2.0

by TsingaDark



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Blood and Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Phan - Freeform, World War I, more tags are going to be added as the story progresses, the vampires in this are a bit different to the ones in movies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 14:03:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8105197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsingaDark/pseuds/TsingaDark
Summary: Dan, a grumpy, hot chocolate loving and book writing vampire, wants nothing to do with humans.Phil, a cheery, coffee loving and colourful human, wants to get to know Dan. Or, the one where vampires are nothing like in movies or tv shows and Dan has had enough of being hunted by humans and only wants to read his book in peace, please and thank you.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my first proper chaptered fic!! I have a lot planned for this fic and I'm very determined to finish it!! 
> 
> Updates will probs be every wednesday but I can't promise it'll be that day everytime bc I am a high functioning procrastinator and also, I'm starting uni in october (edit: if I ever had a regular updating schedule for this, it's gone completely out of the window by now)
> 
> oh yeah, sorry for the title. this is nothing like twilight, obvs

Dan was a vampire. Like the ones in Twilight. Except he wasn’t like Edward Cullen and his family at all. The only thing they had in common was the ability to walk in broad daylight. And no, Dan didn’t sparkle. If he did, he would’ve ended his life decades ago. Well, not his _life_ , because technically he wasn’t even alive. Although, he was a living organism by definition. Anyway, he definitely would’ve ended his existence, okay?

Dan had seen a lot in his 228-year _existence_ as a vampire. The attainment of civil freedom and equality rights in France and thereby the downfall of absolutism, the end of the Holy Roman Empire, the banishment Napoleon’s, emigration to the USA caused by famine, the implementation of the stamp, the end of slavery as well as the First and Second World War and with it the ever ongoing change of humanity.

The bottom line was that there were always the same types of people, no matter in which decade Dan was, but with advancing technology and the ever growing level of luxury (yes, Dan called today’s toilet a luxury; he didn’t even want to remember what the toilets two centuries ago had looked like) social interactions between humans had changed significantly. By now it didn’t take several weeks until a letter arrived at the desired destination, but instead only a few days, if even that long. And if someone didn’t have that much patience, they could always use a telephone and call someone at the other end of the world with that small device.

And then the internet had been invented. Granted, in comparison with the present speed and extent of the internet now and in the past, there had been rapid progress despite the small time frame, but Dan was very glad about that.

Years ago he’d had to wait minutes for a page to load and now it happened in a split second. If Dan had had to chose an era from his life that he liked the best, he’d have chosen the current one. The world was on its way forward and didn’t slow down one bit.

It hadn’t come as far as in True Blood that humans knew about the existence of vampires but Dan was pretty sure it would come to that eventually. Before that could happen, though, humans needed to learn to accept the different individuals of their own species. And that could still take a while. At least, the internet contributed a big part to that. Social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube allowed it so that humans could proclaim their opinions to the entire world.

Dan and a few of his vampire friends even had a closed group on Facebook, which made the distribution and dispatch of blood bottles that little bit easier. Of course they used code words for everything so that an uninformed person wouldn’t know what they were actually talking about, should someone ever have a sneak peek at their site.

Dan could spend hours on the internet. When he wasn’t stalking his favourite celebrities on Twitter or looking for books to read on Google, he used his computer for playing games. He understood why many parents didn’t want their children to spend so much time in front of their gaming consoles. It was addictive. It was a good thing that he was a vampire, who worked from home anyway and had all the time in the world. Otherwise he would’ve been annoyed about putting so much time into it he’d never get back.

However, when Dan wasn’t sitting in front of his computer at home - in the dark, he might add - he liked to go outside and watch humans. He sat down in parks, cafés, bus stops, everywhere he didn’t excessively attract attention and could study his surroundings in peace.

He didn’t do this to meet new people. He certainly had had his fair share of that. During his first hundred years as a vampire he’d constantly tried to find contact. He’d had enough of spending time with thousands of years old vampires, whose idea of a fun time consisted of slaves and a plethora of wine. Instead, Dan had rather wanted to meet humans who still understood the art of living every day as if it was their last. Which, in the end, was the catch of that entire undertaking. Because while  Dan didn’t age and always looked like a 24 year old man, his human friends got older and older until they eventually died, some earlier than others.

And that wasn’t even counting in that it was extremely difficult to hide his existence as a vampire from his friends. It had happened too often for his liking that he’d been chased with a stake after he’d either revealed his true identity on purpose or been caught while lusting after blood.

In 1910 he’d thought to have found the perfect girl for himself. She understood him like no one else had before. She was there for him, she loved him. He’d thought he could trust her. As it turned out though, he realised that you never knew a person as well as you thought you did. After his confession she seemed scared but at the same time understanding and accepting. When she hunted him with a mob of angry villagers in tow that night, he realised that even the seemingly most perfect love couldn’t overcome this curse that laid upon him.

Since then he hadn’t actively searched for any more human contact. He’d reduced his interactions with humans to the bare minimum, so that he didn’t attract attention for being a loner nor for being an extroverted partygoer. He’d found the perfect middle that let him enjoy his existence without getting chased by vampire hunters at every turn.

Dan had just reached the most exciting part of the book he was currently reading (he knew that because he’d read this specific book about ten times already) as a hot chocolate was placed on the table in front of him with a loud bang that made Dan wince. His gaze darted upwards but as soon as he saw the excessively friendly smile on the face of the barista named Phil in front of him, he immediately regretted not just having ignored him. He mumbled a quiet and, as he hoped, menacing thanks and turned back to his book. Although he didn’t see it, he knew that the barista was smiling even more brightly at him before he bounced back to the counter.

Dan really didn’t know why he still visited this café.

Well, that was a lie. He knew why he still came here, despite the barista that got terribly on his nerves. The hot chocolate was heavenly. Not to mention the chocolate and apple pie that always came fresh out of the oven whenever he ordered some.

By the way, it was a widely spread rumour that vampires weren’t able to eat anything, otherwise they’d vomit blood everywhere. Dan was very glad that wasn’t the case because this way he wasn’t distinguishable from humans when it came to food. Also, y’know, because of the blood  vomiting part. That probably wouldn’t feel very nice.

Still, Dan had toyed with the idea of changing his favourite café. He didn’t want to attract attention, he simply wanted to drink his hot chocolate and read a book in peace. However, since one of the baristas, Frank, had quit because his Italian girlfriend had unexpectedly proposed and both of them had moved to Italy, this clumsy and always good-humoured barista now stumbled through the café. It made Dan want to destroy some chairs. Nothing worsened his mood like an almost thirty year old man with red shoes and brightly coloured t-shirts.

Dan had always liked that the employees of the café weren’t forced to wear a uniform – except for black trousers and an apron – but by now he longed for the baristas to have the same outfit so that he wouldn’t have to see Phil’s brightly coloured clothes anymore.

At least Phil wasn’t the only barista, otherwise Dan would’ve gone insane. If he was lucky enough, he wouldn’t get the annoying one to serve him, even if it had been him suspiciously often lately.

When Dan had emptied his mug, he waited until Phil was occupied with another customer and gestured to Stacey that he wanted to pay. Stacey had already worked in the café when Dan had first visited it. She knew not to ask any personal questions or pester Dan. He liked her for respecting his privacy and her calm nature. Sometimes he saw parts of himself in her. That was probably the reason why he always gave her a big tip.

As he got up and walked towards the exit he could literally feel the gaze of Phil follow him. He ignored the cheery “Goodbye!” and stepped out of the café into the warm afternoon sun that let spring seem like summer due to the lack of clouds.

He stopped for a short moment and felt the rays of sunshine tickle his pale skin, then he turned away and walked down the street swiftly. He was hungry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is this
> 
> this chapter is a bit short, I apologise for that. I wanted to make it longer but didn't have the time  
> that also means that there's not a lot of actual things happening in this chapter but I promise the next one will actually move the plot along

Phil had travelled to many different places and had therefore seen a lot in his life. He’d never met someone like Dan, though, who was the complete opposite of him. Where Phil was open and friendly, Dan was withdrawn and impolite. Where Phil was bright and colourful, Dan was black and monochrome. Maybe those contrasts were the reason why Phil was so drawn to Dan. Maybe it was something completely different. The only thing Phil knew for sure was that he wasn’t able to look away from the other man. No matter how impolite and ignorant Dan was towards him, he still had this air about him that made Phil oversee his rude behaviour. He had a hunch that Dan was more than what he was showing and that his behaviour was only an act. And Phil definitely wanted to find out what was behind Dan’s facade.

Sometimes Dan ignored him to an extent where Phil felt like he might actually be a ghost or that he didn’t exist. Of course, Phil’s interactions with other actual people reassured him that he was very much alive and that Dan simply didn’t care enough to at least utter a sound towards him.

Phil could understand, at least to some degree. Sometimes he wanted to be left alone, too, after a long day of work. He was still of the opinion, however, that Dan didn’t need to be so rude about it.

He would’ve taken Dan’s behaviour personally but he’d soon learned that Dan was acting that way towards everyone, apart from Stacey, and that it wasn’t anything personal. Which in turn made Phil even more adamant at being friendly towards Dan to show him that being nice wasn’t a bad thing. And anyway, even if Phil had taken Dan’s behaviour personally, he wouldn’t have reacted in the same way Dan treated him. He was far too polite for that.

Of course, there were also moments where Dan wasn’t rude towards anyone, simply because he wasn’t paying any attention whatsoever to his surroundings, so engrossed in his book lying on the table in front of him that he forgot to drink his hot chocolate that slowly but surely cooled down to room temperature. In those rare moments Phil was sure that he was able to see the real Dan, the one that didn’t feel the need to be rude to people so they wouldn’t come too close to him.

The concentrated look on his face while reading, the temporarily light smile, the sometimes pulled down corners of his mouth, the spark in his eyes, all of those things burned themselves into Phil’s mind while he observed Dan whenever he had a few minutes to spare.

He knew that most people would dub his behaviour as weird, but then again, he’d never thought he was normal and he certainly didn’t feel the need to start being normal now. He’d rather study Dan, who always brought sunshine into his life whenever he entered the café, no matter how annoyed he looked. Because moments like that made up for all the ones Dan ignored him.

Phil stood behind the counter and was sorting and putting away spoons as he saw Dan leaving from the corner of his eye. His “Goodbye” was ignored by Dan, as expected, and Phil was just about to go back to his spoons when he saw Dan stop in front of the café.

The sun enveloped him like a spotlight on a theatre stage and made him the main character in Phil’s life for a short moment. His eyes were closed, his face angled towards the sun that let him appear even paler than he was anyway, and he seemed more peaceful than he’d ever had before. He looked like an angel.

*

Dan emptied the blood bottle with only a few swigs. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he’d been until he looked at the blood bottles in his fridge. Since he ate normal food as well, he sometimes forgot that he needed blood on the side to survive. He was very glad that Ben regularly provided him with blood. Otherwise he would stand in front of an empty fridge one day.

Dan snatched another blood bottle for himself and closed the fridge. He didn’t pay attention to the postcards and pictures on the metal case and walked towards the living room where he let himself fall onto the grey, worn out couch.

He’d only lived in this particular apartment for a few years. It was old and looked to have been renovated room by room as each room had a differently coloured carpet. At least all of the walls had been painted white sometime before Dan had moved in so that there were no hideous colour combinations like a red carpet with blue wallpaper, but Dan didn’t necessarily rule out that that had been the case at some point.

Most of the time Dan bought new furniture whenever he moved since it was pretty noticeable to be moving with furniture from a previous century. As a man in his mid twenties that did look quite weird. During his last move, though, he didn’t have the heart to get rid of all his furniture and took it with him. Therefore, some pieces of furniture looked particularly used but Dan thought that it helped with the _flair_ of the apartment, like some other things he’d accumulated over the years, like a Moroccan amber lamp, an old piano, which was horribly untuned, as well as a Venetian mask he’d worn at a ball at the end of the 18 th century. All those things awakened memories that he dearly cherished. Although he wasn’t able to forget anything, being a vampire and all, he sometimes needed a physical object to be able to remember a certain situation.

Now and again he asked himself how it’d be in two or three hundred years. Would all of his memories be one grey mass, impossible to be pulled apart and burying every one of his experiences underneath it? The days he thought about that, he mostly spent lying down somewhere, preferably the floor or couch, without moving an inch. Only his hunger for blood was able to pull him out of those crises.

Dan sipped on his blood bottle as he zapped through different TV channels. Since TVs had become a thing, he’d become enamoured and constantly tried to keep up with all of his favourite shows, but with the huge amount that he watched that was practically impossible. Contrary to some vampire legends Dan actually needed sleep and wasn’t able to pull an all-nighter every night, not for lack of trying though.

Actually, there were a lot of myths about vampires that weren’t true. Dan for example didn’t sleep in a coffin. He couldn’t really understand why some of the older vampires chose to sleep in coffins. He’d tried it once and had had horrific back pain the morning after. Coffins were anything but comfortable even if they provided shelter from the sunlight, but Dan had blinds on his windows for that.

He eventually settled on a re-run of the last season of The Great British Bake Off and regretted for about the hundredth time that he’d never bothered learning how to properly bake. Maybe now was the time to change that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this chapter is late. I moved yesterday and was too tired to upload the chapter.   
> also, I'm hoping to make the next few chapters longer than the previous ones
> 
> (this is shit, why am I even trying)

Dan had had an awful day. First, his editor had sent him an indignant email asking why he hadn’t taken any of his annotations seriously and hadn’t changed his text at all. Dan had answered with a likewise indignant email that he didn’t need an editor who was trying to change his entire writing style. He didn’t add that he’d been writing for hundreds of years and had therefore perfected his style, even though he really wanted to. That alone would’ve ruined his morning but then one of the blood bottles had slipped from his grasp, splattering blood all over the floor. It had taken him hours to scrub it off the tiles.

And as if that hadn’t been enough, it started to pour down the minute he stepped out of his house to get some fresh air and grunt at a few innocent people on the way. He was drenched in seconds. 

All in all, it wasn’t a particularly good day and Dan was pretty irritated when he finally walked into the café.

Luckily, it wasn’t Phil who served him, otherwise he probably would’ve left the café again right away. Instead, Stacey brought him a too sweet caramel macchiato after noticing Dan’s mood the minute she saw him. He was glad that she could sense when he wasn’t in the mood to talk. 

Blanking out the other people in the café, Dan concentrated on writing. He knew that it wasn’t a particularly good idea to write in his current emotional state but he needed a way to channel his bad mood and the ensuing fury into something that wouldn’t hurt anyone. The internet and a book would only fuel his rage, therefore that only left the option of putting pen to paper. Or, well, fingers to keyboard, in his case. 

Dan was entirely ripped out of his writing trance when there was a sudden, loud bang. Confused, he blinked and tried to focus his eyes on the screen. He’d been so submerged in his thoughts that he hadn’t even paid heed to what exactly he was writing. He could spend hours in such a state, without feeling the need to take a break. Now however, the intense shouting of a human forcefully ripped him out of that state.

Highly irritated, Dan looked around and immediately spotted the source of noise. A sturdy man, who’d sat himself down at a table near the door, was as red in the face as a tomato. Probably from all the yelling. 

Phil kneeled in a puddle of coffee in front of him, frantically gathering up broken pieces of crockery. He was apologising constantly, and Dan could smell the salty tears in his eyes even from this distance. 

All of that didn’t seem to interest the man very much. He got up, vigorously waving about with his arms, while his yells directed towards Phil steadily increased in volume. 

Before Dan knew what he was doing, he’d gotten up and walked towards both men. Normally, he tried not to appear too tall but now he straightened up to take full advantage of his height. 

“I suggest you leave now,” he said with as much authority in his voice as he could muster. He didn’t waste his time with pointless apologies. This human didn’t deserve any anyway. 

The man let off of Phil and turned towards Dan, who was entirely unimpressed of the fists slowly moving in his direction.

“Go back to your graveyard you little emo and don’t stick your nose in other people’s business,” the man spat.

Oh  _ no _ , he hadn’t actually said what Dan thought he had, had he? Dan could handle a lot of things but when someone called him an emo his patience snapped. 

He grabbed a handful of the disgusting man’s shirt and elevated him so that he was only standing on tiptoes. His hands immediately flew to Dan’s wrist but Dan didn’t loosen his grip. Dan still towered over him and he mercilessly used the size difference to his advantage. 

“Listen to me, you disgusting asshole. I’m not gonna repeat myself. You’re going to leave this café and never come back.” Dan lifted his hand a bit higher and could see from the panic in the man’s eyes that he was about to lose contact to the floor. “Understood?”

Dan felt the man’s hands get steadily sweatier; they were about to slide off his arm any second now. His heartbeat was exponentially getting faster, his blood practically jumping in Dan’s face. “Understood?” he hissed.

The man nodded quickly but Dan only had eyes for his main artery forcefully pulsating on his throat and drawing Dan in. This man deserved nothing but being sucked dry by Dan. He wasn’t even worth that. Dan should just let him bleed to death.

“Dan.”

Suddenly there was a hand on his forearm. The light touch pulled Dan out of his trance. He turned his head and looked at Phil’s concerned face.

“You can let him go now,” Phil said in a calming tone of voice while gently pressing down Dan’s arm. Dan instantly let go of the man who obviously hadn’t banked on it and promptly fell backwards onto the table. As quickly as he’d fallen, though, he got up again. Without looking around, he fled from the café, banging the door hard against the wall.

The momentary silence that had set in the minute Dan’d appeared dissolved abruptly. Loud voices penetrated Dan’s ears and for a short moment he felt disoriented. 

“Thank you.” Phil’s sincere words brought him back. “That was very nice of you.”

Dan could only stare at him as the barista kneeled down again to continue picking up the broken pieces of crockery. Dan sank down to his knees as well. As he reached for one of the shards, their hands touched and Dan withdrew his arm rapidly. Where Phil’s warm hand had touched his cold one, his skin tingled. If felt like a thousand ants running around under his skin.

A few seconds later the delicious smell of blood penetrated his senses. It didn’t seem like it in vampires movies but it was definitely possible for a vampire to control themselves in the presence of blood. To be honest, Dan hadn’t really conceived it as difficult until now, apart from his first year of being a vampire. He’d been long since over that, though. 

When he smelled Phil’s blood, however, that dripped onto the floor from his index finger, every muscle in Dan’s body tensed and he was surprised he didn’t immediately pounce him and suck him dry. And not in the pleasant way Phil might appreciate.

Phil didn’t seem to notice what was going through Dan’s mind as he tried to stop the bloodflow with the towel hanging from his apron, failing miserably. 

Dan knew that if he didn’t leave any second now, he’d actually attack Phil. Against his body’s wishes he got up. Phil looked up to him with a confused expression on his face.

“I’ve got to go,” Dan said and before Phil could reply, he was already out of the door of the café and in the heavy rain, running down the street. He only stopped when he was several kilometres away.

*

 

Phil had no idea whatsoever what had just happened. One moment Dan had been kneeling next to him to pick up the shards and the next he’d been gone. He’d left his jacket, money and his laptop, which normally, he closed already whenever someone tried to catch a glimpse of what he was doing. 

He couldn’t shake the feeling that it had something to do with him. Did Dan think him so repulsive that he couldn’t even bear to help him? Or be near him? Phil couldn’t think of another reason why Dan had fled all of a sudden. 

Now that he thought about that moment again, Dan’s face stood out in his mind, the angry look in his eyes, the exposed teeth, the rage that his entire body had exuded. And how all of that had fallen away at Phil’s soft touch. Had Dan been terrified of how he’d reacted? Was he afraid of what would’ve happened if Phil hadn’t stopped him? Phil didn’t know a single answer to those questions and the longer he pondered about it, the more his headache increased, the pain pressing into his eyes.

In case Dan came back, Phil had stored his belongings in the small break room at the far back of the café that was never used anyway, because it smelled like old socks and sweat in there. But as the day neared its end, dousing everything in foggy moonlight, there was still no sign of Dan, so Phil decided to take Dan’s things with him. He had this irrational fear that one of his colleagues would steal Dan’s laptop, even if he didn’t think one of them to be capable of such behaviour. He just knew that he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if Dan’s hard work were to disappear under his watch. At least, Phil assumed that Dan was a writer, considering how he’d hammer away incessantly at his keyboard most of the time. Somehow, he doubted that Dan possessed a lot of backup copies of his work.

Phil let Dan’s macbook slip into his bag and slung it over his shoulder after he’d positioned his rucksack on his back. The combined weight hurt his back after a few steps already but he clenched his teeth and walked home to his flat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter is spectacularly late. Life happened. I probably won't be able to update this Wednesday either but I should be back on the regular schedule next week
> 
> Also, thank you so much to everyone who's read and commented the story! It means a lot to me that people actually enjoy reading this :)
> 
> (I wrote most of this today, so I'm not sure how much sense it makes, sorry)

Of course, Dan had gotten lost after he’d stormed out of the café, leaving him to stray around an unfamiliar area for over an hour until he finally stumbled upon his flat by accident. He had a terrible sense of direction and therefore never went anywhere without his phone providing him with GPS so he wouldn’t get lost. Unfortunately, he’d noticed after about ten minutes that he’d left all of his belongings in the café, including his phone that he’d not had in the front pocket of his jeans like he normally had, but had instead slipped into his bag. Which now laid next to a chair in the café, ready to be stolen by anybody.

He could’ve gone back – he knew the way to the café from his flat – but his thoughts created a whirlwind in his mind, turning his insides to mush, and he knew he couldn’t go back, at least not now. He broke into his own flat, making himself a note in his mind to let the lock be repaired.

As if in trance, Dan walked into the bedroom, letting himself fall onto the monochrome bed sheets that were lying in disarray on the bed, like always. He took hold of the pillow and pressed it onto his face. The cold material felt calming but all of a sudden he became aware of how drenched he actually was. His wet clothes stuck to his body uncomfortably, and frustrated, he struggled into a sitting position to get rid off them. That turned out to be harder than expected though and ended with him shredding his jeans and getting even angrier.

His hands shook. If he’d still been human, that probably would’ve resulted from a combination of the cold and wetness, but he knew that it was the anger boiling up in him that made his body tremble. He balled his fists and bit down on his lip, hard.

After some time had passed, he realised he’d closed his eyes and slowly opened them. He had no idea how long he’d been lying on the bed like this but he noticed that that the anger had subsided a bit.

On his way to the bathroom he felt the soft carpet under his feet and breathed in the familiar smell of his flat that consisted of a mixture of blood, old wood and fabric softener. He stumbled into the shower and cranked up the heat as much as he could. The hot water only hurt his skin a little bit. As soon as it was damaged, it healed again, and Dan enjoyed the calmness the fastly fogging up shower walls brought him. Only as the water steadily turned colder, he turned it off and dried himself off. Back in his room he put on a pair of briefs and got back into bed, this time under the covers, which he pulled up over his head, engulfing him in darkness.

Sleep didn’t come easily, especially since it was still daytime, but eventually he slipped into an uneasy slumber, colours and shapes starting to appear, swirling through his mind. Suddenly there was Phil in front of him, wearing the same clothes he’d had today, a smile on his lips as he was looking at Dan. All of a sudden he came closer, reaching for Dan, his warm hands settling on Dan’s cold skin. Dan wanted to turn away, to get away from Phil and his touch, but he couldn’t move. Phil was still smiling, his eyes sparkling with something akin to humour, but then he bit his lower lip and suddenly there was blood running down them, towards his chin and neck. Dan felt his body tense and he more than anything wanted to turn away, but his body wouldn’t cooperate and then he attacked, his mouth sucking at the skin on Phil’s neck, tasting his blood but not breaking the skin with his fangs that he felt snap out. And then the angle changed and they were horizontally, Dan on top of Phil, and he could feel desire shoot through him.

Dan woke with a start, Phil’s name on his lips.

Well shit, that hadn’t happened to him before.

 

*

 

The next morning, Dan decided to go back to the café to collect his belongings. He avoided thinking about yesterday - the incident in the café and his dream of Phil - as much as possible. He had no idea whatsoever what the dream had meant, especially considering he didn’t even like Phil and didn’t have any desire to change that. Nevertheless, he still drank as much blood as he could before he left as he didn’t want a repeat of yesterday. Of course he hoped that Phil wouldn’t even be there which would make everything ten times easier.

Stepping into the café, he was relieved to find Phil absent. His gaze immediately strayed towards his usual table but his belongings weren’t there. He hadn’t thought them to be anyway.

He quickly made his way to the counter where Stacey stood, talking to a customer. Dan waited for him to be gone before he approached her. More than once his hand strayed towards the front pocket of his jeans where his phone would normally be.

“Hi,” he said quickly.

“Oh, hey, Dan,” she replied. She didn’t seem surprised to see him there.

“I forgot my bag yesterday.” He felt the urge to ask her where it was immediately but quenched the need to utter those words. He liked Stacey; he didn’t want to be rude. Well, ruder than normal anyway.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “Phil took it with him when he went home yesterday.”

Wait, _what_?

“ _Excuse me_?” he asked after a short pause in which he expected her to tell him that she was joking and that Phil hadn’t actually taken all of his things.

Stacey leant forwards, beckoning Dan to come closer. Reluctantly, he stepped closer to the counter.

“He was worried that someone else would… y’know,” she half-whispered, quickly looking towards another barista who was busy carrying a tray with a few cups of coffee towards the other end of the café, “steal it from the break room.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. Firstly, that didn’t sound like Phil at all, who was always sociable and very gullible - not that Dan had paid attention to him but Phil’s personality was hard to miss. Secondly, couldn’t Phil taking Dan’s things without permission also be considered stealing? And thirdly - probably the most important point Dan got from that - Dan would have to face Phil. Of course his luck couldn’t have been long lasting.

“When’s he coming in today?” he asked, trying to keep the irritation from seeping into his voice.

“He was working earlier but he told me you could swing by his house,” Stacey said, smiling at him. She probably hadn’t picked up on his rapidly declining mood yet.

“He-” Dan cut himself before he said something extremely inappropriate. “Where does he live?” he asked instead.

“Um, one second, he wrote the address down somewhere.” With those words Stacey rummaged around a stack of papers behind the counter. Seconds later, she waved around a bright yellow piece of paper in front of Dan’s face, a victorious grin on her lips.

Dan plucked it from her fingers gingerly. He wasn’t quite sure if he trusted anything that Phil had touched.

“Thanks,” he said - he had manners after all, even if he didn’t always showcase them.

“You’re welcome,” Stacey replied.

Dan turned away and exited the café while staring at Phil’s address. For a short while, he debated whether he could avoid going to Phil’s, but then he felt the void in his front pocket and knew he had to face him. He wouldn’t survive another day without his phone. He wondered how he’d lived so long without one, considering he wasn’t able to navigate without it.

After way too long - Dan might or might not have got lost a few times - he finally reached his destination. Phil lived in a small cottage, its front yard overgrown with flowers of various sizes and colours.

If the cottage hadn’t belonged to Phil, Dan might’ve been able to admit the beauty of it, but as it was, he only grumbled as he stamped towards the front door. He rang the doorbell and after a few seconds the door was opened.

Dan had been ready to demand his bag but then he took in Phil stood in the doorway and for some bizarre reason the words got stuck in his throat. Confused, he blinked as his gaze wandered over Phil’s Undertale T-shirt - _he liked video games?_ \- and his cookie monster pyjama pants. To top it all of, he was wearing fucking glasses. Dan hadn’t even _known_ that Phil owned a pair.

“Um, Dan?” he suddenly heard Phil asking and realised that he was staring. He immediately started to glare at Phil.

“My bag,” was all that Dan got out.

“Of course,” Phil said brightly as he swiftly turned around and walked back inside. Dan caught himself staring at Phil’s behind and gave himself a mental slap. Just because he’d had that weird dream about sucking on Phil’s neck, didn’t mean that he lusted after Phil all of a sudden, or that he wanted to.

Phil came back soon after, Dan’s bag in his hand. Dan immediately snatched it off him when he got close enough.

“There you go,” Phil said, as if he’d just brought Dan a coffee. Dan growled in response.

“Oh, I was wondering,” Phil started. If there had ever been a cue for Dan to leave, it was this now, but for some reason he stayed, despite him already having what he came for.

“Why did you leave so suddenly yesterday?”

Dan froze. _Shit._

What was he supposed to tell Phil? He obviously couldn’t tell the truth! _Oh, your blood smelled too delicious, I almost attacked you so I left. Oh, btw, I’m a vampire._

Right. Somehow Dan couldn’t see that going down very well.

“Um,” Dan said, trying to think of a reason that sounded plausible. Was it too late to run away?

“I thought I’d left the stove on.”

Phil’s smile faltered a bit and he arched his eyebrows. “Ah, okay,” he said.

Well, that went smoothly. Dan literally couldn’t have done a worse job. And why did he care anyway? He didn’t even _like_ Phil, so it shouldn’t matter what Phil thought of him. Right?

Oh dear God, he was too old for this, whatever _this_ was. Certainly not him liking Phil, with his dorky pyjamas, and his sexy- _nerdy_ glasses, and his sunny attitude, nope.

Phil looked down at Dan’s bag shortly, which he held securely in his arms, and Dan eyed him warily. Phil seemed thrown off balance by Dan’s sudden glare as he shoved his glasses further up his nose. Dan thought he looked rather guilty feeling.

Wait a minute.

He tried to remember if he’d closed his laptop before storming towards Phil and that disgusting piece of human garbage yesterday. He was pretty sure he hadn’t. Which meant that it had still been open when Phil had collected his things. Had he-

“Did you look at my laptop?” Dan bit out, unconsciously taking a step towards Phil.

Phil didn’t seem intimidated. Rather the opposite. “Of course not.” He smiled warmly at Dan.

“Right,” Dan said, not quite reassured. Phil could be lying after all. He was probably lying, Dan was pretty sure of that.

“Do you want to come in?” Phil suddenly asked.

Dan almost wanted to say yes. Almost. He caught himself at the last second.

“No,” he spat out, probably more forceful than necessary but it wasn’t like he cared anyway.

“Alright,”  Phil replied, not fazed by Dan’s answer. He’d doubtlessly expected as much.

“I’ll see around?” he then added, but it didn’t sound much like a question.

Dan just grumbled and finally turned around, stalking away from Phil. He didn’t know why he’d stayed so long in the first place. He had better things to do after all. Like playing videos games, which he did as soon as he’d come home.

All the while, he couldn’t shake off the images from his dream, mixing together with a smiling, pyjama-wearing Phil from today. Needless to say, he didn’t stay too focused on the game.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, first of all, I am sorry that I haven't uploaded in forever!!!!
> 
> I don't know why but for some reason I thought I'd be able to do spooky week while still writing a new chapter for this story. As you can tell, that didn't work out. On top of that, I decided to participate in nanowrimo this year (I've written about 1,5k for that....). I've been crazily busy with uni and spending time with my best friend and also, I honestly couldn't bring myself to write most of the time bc I'm too lazy for my own good. 
> 
> However, I will continue this story. I have a lot planned for it and still really like it but I don't know if I will update at all in November because of the above reasons. 
> 
> (also, this chapter is seriously shitty, I'm sorry, but I really wanted to upload something)

Dan only wanted to relax, to savour the few hours without stress as much as he could, but of course, he wasn’t going to get any relaxation with Louise around. 

He liked Louise, he really did. She was like a sister to him, after all, but she tended to appear in the most inconvenient of times. Like this morning for example, the day after he’d been to Phil’s house. Dan wasn’t even  _ awake  _ when the bell rung consistently, rousing him from the pleasant dream he’d had. He couldn’t quite remember what he’d dreamt, the images fading the more he concentrated on them, but he  _ knew  _ that they’d been nice. The shrill ringing of the bell, however, was anything but nice, and Dan hurried down the stairs to the front door. He ripped it open, ready to grumble at the person who’d dared to interrupt his sleep, but before he could even open his mouth, Louise had forced herself onto him, enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug. 

“Lou-” Dan managed to get out, and Louise let go of him, smiling widely at him.

“Where you sleeping?” she then asked, looking him up and down.

“No!” Dan exclaimed, probably too fast. What time was it? Had he missed something?

Louise just raised an eyebrow as she looked at his boxerbriefs and faded t-shirt and Dan grumbled. So what if he’d been asleep? He could do what we wanted with his existence. Just because he was slightly younger didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of keeping himself alive. Well,  _ alive _ was probably the wrong choice of words.

She ushered him inside, closing the door behind her and heading straight for the living room. Dan reluctantly followed her. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation, or even to be in the presence of another being. He just wanted to lounge on the couch all day, play video games and eat pizza, while avoiding thinking about Phil. 

“You didn’t text me back,” Louise said matter of factly when she’d sat down in one of the big armchairs.

“Didn’t I?” Dan asked, although it was definitely an everyday occurrence that he forgot to answer someone’s text. It wasn’t that he did it on purpose, he just decided to do it later, but then later would never come. By now hardly anyone ever bothered to text him since he never answered anyway.

“No, but I’m not surprised,” Louise answered. She was bothered by it though, Dan could tell. He felt an itch to secretly sneak a peek at his phone and see what she’d texted exactly.

“Anyway, that’s why I’m here!” she exclaimed, a big smile on her face. 

“Right.” Dan didn’t mention that she could’ve just called - he always answered phone calls (unless he was too comfortable to move) - because Louise had probably waited for a reason to pester him in person. Not that that was what she would call it, of course. 

“You haven’t been on facebook by any chance?” she asked, and now she was grinning. Dan couldn’t help but feel that she was enjoying not telling him why she came over straight away.

“Um, no,” Dan replied, because,  _ honestly _ , who even used facebook these days? Only hundreds of years old vampires - Dan not included - who didn’t understand that facebook was the least cool thing to use these days.

“I thought so,” Louise said, crossing her legs, “there’s a meeting the day after tomorrow.”

“A meeting?” Dan echoed, even though he knew well enough what she was talking about. 

Louise rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dan, a  _ meeting _ . And don’t even think about coming up with an excuse this time.”

Dan wanted to protest - he never just  _ came up _ with an excuse, it wasn’t his fault that the meetings always fell on days where he had to get important things done - but Louise just looked at him pointedly and he closed his mouth. 

“It’s the day after tomorrow and I’ve already told them we’d be attending.”

Dan groaned and buried his head in his hands. He absolutely hated every last one of those goddamn vampire meetings. They were boring as hell and Dan never volunteered for anything anyway. Why did he have to go then?

“Why?” he whined, questioning his whole existence. 

“Because you can’t always ignore your responsibilities,” Louise answered and she sounded way too happy about Dan’s suffering. 

“You can’t honestly tell me you enjoy those meetings,” Dan said incredulously, trying to make her change her mind. 

“They’re refreshing once in a while,” Louise replied. Dan could most definitely hear that she was lying. 

Fine, if she wanted to drag him down with her, she might as well. It wasn’t like it could get any worse. At least that might take his mind off of Phil who kept sneaking into his thoughts. God dammit, he was thinking about him again! 

Dan groaned and wished he could just stop existing. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

“So, what’s been going on?” Louise asked suddenly, and when Dan looked at her, he had the suspicion she knew more than she let on. Was he that obvious?

“Nothing,” he lied.

“Dan,” she said, sounding reproachful, probably because they mostly told each other everything that happened.

“How’s your book coming along,” she asked then, after a moment of silence when Dan didn’t say anything, guessing that he’d at least tell her about that. 

“Okay,” he replied, “-ish.” He couldn’t help but think about Phil again and if he really hadn’t looked at Dan’s work like he’d said. 

“Didn’t you say you were about to finish it?” 

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Dan groaned. “I’m working on it.”

“That’s what you say about most things you procrastinate on,” Louise replied with a grin.

“That’s not true!” Dan exclaimed indignantly. “I  _ am _ working on it! It’s not my fault that incident with Phil happened where he stole my laptop and I couldn’t work!”

Shit, he hadn’t meant that to come out.

“Phil?” Louise asked eagerly, leaning forward in her chair. 

“No one important,” Dan said, waving with his hand to stop Louise from asking further questions.

Louise scoffed. “I highly doubt that, considering you bothered learning his name.”

“I didn’t want to!” Dan exclaimed, willing her to understand that Phil really didn’t mean anything to him. “He keeps pestering me!”

“Oh, really?” she retorted, grinning widely.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Not like that. He’s a barista in the café I frequent.”

“Is that what it’s called these days?”

Dan grimaced. “No,... just  _ no _ .”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” she laughed. “You’re not into him.”

“Thank you,” Dan said, relieved that Louise had finally given in, although he wasn’t convinced that she actually believed him. He was thinking about bringing up the incident with Phil he’d had the other day but decided against it even though he wanted answers. Louise would know right away that he was talking about Phil, and he’d never hear the end of it. 

“Do you have any blood?” Louise suddenly asked, already getting up and walking towards the kitchen. It wasn’t unusual for them to share their blood supplies as they both normally preferred the same type. Dan was very glad that she’d actually changed the topic and didn’t bother him about Phil anymore.

“Yeah, only A+ though,” Dan replied, following her. It was only when he stepped into the kitchen that he remembered the little accident he’d had and that he’d not been able to remove all of the blood stains. It didn’t look very well, like he’d killed a human and left them to bleed out on the floor.

Louise didn’t even bat an eyelash and just continued her way to his fridge, opening it and then opening a second door inside it where Dan stashed his blood bottles. It probably wasn’t the safest way to store them as just about anyone had access to them if they wanted, but he honestly couldn’t care less. 

“Um, Dan?” Louise said, turning around to where Dan had sat down at the kitchen table. 

“Yeah?” 

“You literally have one blood bottle left.” She looked at him quizzically, like she was trying to figure out if vampires could suffer from dementia.

“Oh.” He tried to remember when his last supply had come in. It couldn’t have been too long ago. When had he drunk so much-  _ oh _ , yeah. The day when that thing with Phil happened. He’d obviously drunk more blood after that dream with Phil and the next morning than he could remember.

“Do you-” Dan started and then cut himself off while Louise put her hands on her hips, waiting for an explanation. It was considered dangerous to be low on blood bottles as the vampire was more prone to attack a human when they accidentally ran out of blood. However, Dan had never attacked a human, well, maybe once or twice, so there was no reason for Louise to look at him like that.

“I mean,” Dan tried anew, thinking about how to phrase his question. “Have you ever had this, um,  _ urge _ to suck someone dry?” he said eventually, internally cursing himself about the way the words had come out.

It didn’t surprise him much when Louise started laughing. “Dan!” she gasped, “I really don’t want to hear about your blowjob fantasies!” 

“What?!” Dan spluttered, and if he’d been human, this would’ve been the moment the blood would’ve rushed to his face. “I- that’s not-”

“My God, you should see your face,” Louise laughed. “Priceless!”

Dan just grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“I’m only teasing,” she said, grinning widely as she leant back on the counter. “Seriously though, was that blood related or…”

“Of course it was!” Dan exclaimed indignantly. He wondered if it was overly dramatic if he just left his own house. 

“Right. Do tell then.”

Dan groaned inwardly. How was he supposed to explain all of this without Louise noticing that he was talking about Phil? Once she found out, she’d never shut up about him, which Dan really wanted to avoid, seeing as he didn’t want to even think about Phil anymore. 

“Um,” Dan said, and immediately wanted to facepalm. The way he was going, Louise already knew he wasn’t telling her everything. “You know I’m not normally that blood thirsty, right?”

Louise lifted an eyebrow but nodded nonetheless.

“Right,” Dan continued, “I was in, um, I was somewhere the other day and-”

“You were  _ somewhere _ ?” Louise asked, smirking. 

“Yes,” Dan said, not clarifying the place in question. “And then this, um, person cut hi-  _ their  _ hand and I basically wanted to pounce them, not in  _ that _ way,” he quickly said, seeing Louise already open her mouth, ”and suck their blood.”

Louise hummed as she tapped her fingers on her chin. “Interesting.”

“Interesting?” Dan echoed, not liking where this was going.

“That  _ person  _ wouldn’t have been Phil by any chance?” Louise then asked.

“No!” Dan answered, probably a bit too fast, judging by the smirk on Louise’s lips.

“Okay, so let me get this straight. You were next to Phil- a  _ person _ , sorry, and when he cut his hand and you smelled his blood, you wanted to drink it?”

Dan couldn’t help but feel that there had been a hidden question somewhere in there. “Um, yeah.”

Suddenly, Louise started laughing again. It threw Dan for a loop and he could only stare at her for the five minutes it took her to calm down. 

“Oh, Dan,” she then said, sighing slightly. “You’re a bit dense sometimes, you know that?”

“I’m not! And that’s really not a nice thing to say to a friend!” Dan exclaimed, trying (and probably failing) not to pout.

Louise shrugged. “Well, it’s true. How long have you been a vampire now?”

“You know how old I am,” Dan groaned, because it was true. Louise gave him a birthday card every year, self-made, with the correct amount of years Dan had spent as a vampire at that time. 

“And you still don’t know what it means when someone’s blood particularly appeals to you.”

Dan wanted to say no, because he  _ didn’t _ . But he also didn’t want to feel even stupider in front of Louise, even though she was his best friend. 

“Shut up!” he said instead, “As if you know any better, you’re only a couple of years older.”

“Real mature, Howell,” she sighed, shaking her head. “But fine, if you want to be that way, you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

Well, that was not exactly what Dan had wanted to accomplish. 

“And tell that Phil guy he should shed more blood, maybe then you’ll get it.”

“Louise!” Dan hissed. He really wanted her to leave him alone in his misery with trying to get Phil out of his mind and not make him feel any more stupid. Of course, now that she’d made it obvious that he should know what was going on, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He knew he would spend the rest of the day thinking about what it was that he didn’t realise. 

Fuck, it was going to be a long day. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um, hello, I'm not dead. 
> 
> it took me frigging forever to write this chapter due to nanowrimo (I only managed to write 10k btw...), uni and comic con. BUT, at least it's a bit longer than normally (not any better though). also, I know it's not Wednesday but whatever
> 
> I want to dedicate this chapter to [tofangirlornottofangirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tofangirlornottofangirl) bc she always leaves such nice comments and is a generally awesome person. (everyone go read her phanfic!)
> 
> I know I've said that updates would happen regularly again after November but I honestly don't think I'll be able to upload a new chapter every week. I feel very shitty about it but maybe I'll manage to upload a new one every two weeks at least. 
> 
> (in other news, I was planning to write a few christmas themed OS so there might be one or two of those before I upload a new chapter for this. anyway, I'll shut up now)

Dan might’ve spent the entire day pondering about what Louise had said. Maybe. And he might’ve not actually come to a decent conclusion apart from ‘ _Louise is only trying to wind you up’_. Maybe that was the reason why he thought it to be good idea to go back to the café even though he didn’t want to see Phil again. Because if Louise had only said all of those mysterious things to play a joke on him, then there was nothing to worry about and no reason whatsoever for Dan to go to a different café.

At least, that was what he told himself.

The reality was that there was something about Phil, about his blood, that made him special to Dan, in some way that Dan didn’t understand. He’d thought he knew everything about vampires there was to know but apparently that wasn’t the case. Or Louise really was just trolling him. Which, to be fair, was a reasonable possibility, considering the variety of pranks she’d pulled on him over the years.

The sky was clear and the sun was beating down on him relentlessly the minute Dan stepped outside. Despite being able to walk in broad daylight, he wasn’t particularly fond of the sun, so he kept to walking in the shadows of the trees at the side of the road. He hoped to avoid as many people as possible on his way to the café but was, _of course_ , unsuccessful, because nothing ever happened how he wanted it to. Since it was such a nice day, it appeared that everyone who lived in this town looked to soak up at least some of the sunlight, causing Dan to bump into someone basically every two steps or so. It was annoying to say the least.

By the time he arrived at the café, he’d decided to get a coffee to go and then head straight back home. He wasn’t for the life of him able to be around any more people right now. He needed silence and quiet and a generally humanless place where he could relax for the next thirty hours before the vampire meeting.

Even the café was better frequented than ever and he actually had to queue up, which annoyed him to no end, especially because there was a mother with a small child in front of him. Now, Dan actually quite liked children and he would’ve loved to have his own one day, but mothers, oh boy, were they a completely different story. Some were alright of course - Dan could begrudgingly admit that not every human on this planet was awful - but then there were the ones that terrorised not only their children but everyone else around them too, by being too loud, too authoritative, too much of everything basically. And this woman in front of him was one of those.

Dear Lord, was he happy when it was finally his turn. His joy was short lived however, because as soon as he set eyes on the person behind the counter, he wanted to turn around again and leave without his coffee. The thought of having walked all this way just for nothing let him stay in place though. He could get through one measly conversation with Phil, he was over two hundred years old, for fuck’s sake, not fifteen!

“Hello, what can I get you?” Phil asked cheerily and, upon realising that it was Dan stood in front of him, smiled widely.

“Caramel Macchiato to go, please,” Dan sighed.

“One Caramel Macchiato coming right up,” Phil exclaimed and started preparing the hot drink. Dan was glad Phil was the only barista behind the counter at the moment, forcing him to step away from Dan, making it impossible for them to talk over the loud chatter in the café.

It didn’t take long for Dan’s drink to be finished and after he’d handed over the money, he snatched the beverage out of Phil’s hand and turned around, ignoring Phil asking him how he was. He saw Phil’s face fall from the corner of his eye and blamed the arising squirmy feeling in his stomach on being hungry.

He speed walked out of the café and back into the bright sunlight. He fished his sunglasses out of the pocket of his leather jacket and put them on while trying not to drop his coffee. One should think that being a vampire made Dan more agile and skilled, but in reality he dropped about every item he picked up. It was as if the skin on his fingers was made out of butter.

Shielding his eyes from the bright sun, he slunk back into the shadows and tried to block out everyone around him. He made it back to his flat in record time and let himself fall onto the sofa, sighing loudly.

No matter what Louise said, he really wasn’t the sociable type. Social interactions always sapped his energy, which was why he usually opted to stay at home for the most time.

He turned on the TV and opened Netflix, choosing to watch the latest episode of Game of Thrones while enjoying his coffee.

It was only several minutes later when he was about to throw the now empty cup in the bin that he noticed some scrawling on the side of it. Intrigued, he peered at it closely, realising that the scribble was not only a sentence but that there were numbers underneath it as well. He tried to decipher the almost illegible words. They looked to have been written on the cup in a hurry.

“Whipping… no, _wishing_ you a wonderful May, uh, day?” Dan read aloud, frowning at the words. “Wishing you a wonderful day.”

_What?_ Who had written th-

_Oh._

Right. Phil had made his coffee. Phil had given him the cup. Phil must’ve written on it.

But why for the love of God had he put his, presumably, phone number on it? Why did he think that Dan would want to talk to him on the phone when he didn’t even talk to Phil in the café? Just because they had talked yesterday? Dan hadn’t even _wanted_ to. He hadn’t had any other choice though, seeing as Phil had had his freaking laptop with all of his work on it!

And still, Dan didn’t chuck the cup into the bin, like he’d originally wanted to. Instead, he set it down on the kitchen counter, pushing it into a corner so he wouldn’t have to see it anymore.

 

*

 

Dan stared at his phone. There, on the bright display, was a number, just sitting there innocently by all standards, and yet Dan couldn’t stop looking at it.

Maybe he’d gone insane. That was the only possible explanation for this. Having lived over two hundred years had clearly screwed with his rationality if he actually considered putting Phil’s number into his phone. He didn’t need Phil’s number, heck, he didn’t even _want_ it. And still, he had reached for the coffee cup and looked at it for far too long until he’d finally reached for his phone, creating a new contact that he hadn’t saved yet.

His thumb hovered over the delete button. He practically willed himself to go the last step and place his thumb down but it just wouldn’t happen. And he couldn’t understand _why_.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash, startling Dan so badly that he dropped the phone and the cup, both items falling onto the grey tiles of his kitchen floor.

“Fuck,” he cursed loudly and bent down to retrieve them. If his phone display had a crack, he’d kill whoever had been the cause of the loud noise. Fortunately, there wasn’t a single scratch on the phone, which was a fucking miracle, considering it was the newest iPhone and those always were the easiest to damage.

Dan hadn’t even fully stood up when someone jumped him from behind, almost knocking him over. Instinct took over, making him swivel around swiftly and gripping the person by the throat.

“Dan,” the person gasped, and he immediately let go at the sight of Louise glaring at him.

“Fuck, Lou, don’t sneak up on me!” he exclaimed exasperated, throwing his hands up.

“Sorry,” she replied and grinned at him. She was obviously not sorry at all.

“How the fuck did you get in anyway?” he asked, glaring at her suspiciously.

“Oh.” Louise pointedly looked away, wringing her hands in front of her. “Y’know, how any person would enter a house.”

“Lou,” Dan said warningly.

She sighed. “The window, I came in through the window.”

“The one in the living room? _Why would you even_ \- you know what, nevermind, I don’t even want to know why you decided to climb in through the fucking _window_ , instead of knocking on my door, like a _normal person!_ ”

“First of all, I’m not normal, I’m a vampire, and secondly, windows are basically doors made out of glass,” Louise sniffed and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her blonde hair was falling down in curls around her shoulders, the tips of it dyed pink.

“Right, whatever you say.” Dan rolled his eyes. He should be used to this kind of behaviour by now, after all it wasn’t the first time she’d decided to climb through his window.

Dan was just about to turn away from her when something occurred to him. “Wait a minute,” he said, and when he looked at Louise once more, she was staring at him with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights-expression. “You didn’t knock over my lamp again, did you?”

Louise didn’t even need to say anything. The guilty look on her face revealed her answer all too clearly.

“Great!” Dan exclaimed, “Now I have to replace it _again_. You know how much I liked that lamp.”

“It’s not that bad?” Louise tried but Dan knew that it was. He could hear it from her tone of voice.

He grumbled a bit, mostly for show, because he didn’t actually mind that much. He was used to things breaking and him not being able to replace them because that specific model wasn’t even produced anymore.

“What’s that?” Louise asked suddenly, and Dan was about to ask her what she meant when she bent down, reaching for the used coffee cup still lying on the floor. Dan was sure he’d never moved so fast before in his life as he snatched the cup away right from under her nose and resolutely walked over to the bin with it.

“Nothing,” he said as he dropped it onto a pile of rubbish and pushed down the lid of the bin so Louise wouldn’t even think about getting it out again.

“Right,” Louise said slowly, lifting an eyebrow, but thankfully let it slide. “Anyway, are you ready to go?”

“Um,” Dan replied, “ready to go where?”

“Dan!” she exclaimed, sounding far too much like a mum. “You can’t have forgot the meeting already!”

“Of course not!” Dan defended himself, probably a bit too quickly. “I was just about to get dressed actually.”

In reality, Dan _had_ managed to forget about the meeting. Well, it was more like he’d suppressed Louise ever having told him but that didn’t make much of a difference right now. He’d lowkey hoped that Louise might’ve forgot that she wanted to take Dan with, but should’ve known that she would never let an opportunity pass to see him suffer.

With a fair bit of grumbling he retreated to his bedroom, only to have Louise rushing in a minute later, catching him in his underwear. She basically forced some clothes on him, with Dan protesting the entire time that he was very much able to dress himself, thank you very much! His complaints fell on deaf ears though, and Dan had to reluctantly admit that Louise’s choice of clothes was quite similar to what he would’ve picked out. He didn’t tell her that though, her impolite behaviour didn’t need to be approved any further.

After getting dressed, they left the house - this time not the way Louise had come in. They walked all the way which Dan had no qualms complaining about. It felt like Louise was trying to make this day a living hell for him by forcing two of his least favourite activities on him: exercise and socialising.

It was already getting dark by the time they arrived. The building the meeting was held in was quite non-descriptive but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway if it had been the complete opposite, since the meetings were obviously held under a pretence. Dan didn’t know what they called it but he wouldn’t put it past some of the vampires in charge to have disguised them as AA meetings. It was some kind of weird immortal humour that he didn’t understand.

Dan had hoped to avoid most of the vampires by simply staring at them threateningly but of course that didn’t work. As soon as they entered the building, they ran into Stuart, Dan’s personal demon sent straight from hell. At least that was what he called him in his mind.

Stuart was a relatively young vampire; he’d been turned only twenty years ago, and that showed. He regarded every older vampire with rapid fascination, trying to be just like them. And for whatever reason he’d chosen Dan of all people as the perfect role model. It didn’t matter to him that Dan was anything but, no, he still persistently followed Dan around whenever they happened to be at the same meeting - which was way too often for Dan’s liking.

Stuart was basically everything Dan wasn’t and Dan couldn’t understand why Stuart would want to be like him; he was bubbly and enthusiastic, heart-warmingly nice and open towards everyone, while Dan was the opposite: closed-off, grumpy 24/7 and unhappy about anyone wanting to make conversation with him.

As expected, Stuart greeted him loudly, holding out his hand for Dan to shake even though they’d known each other for two years. Dan didn’t take it. In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge Stuart. Normally, Louise came to his rescue but this time she just stood by while Dan tried to fend Stuart off, a smug grin gracing her face. Dan kind of wanted to just leave straight away but he obviously wouldn’t give Louise the satisfaction. No, he was able to do this.

He looked down at Stuart, who stood quite small with his 5ft 4, and forced a smile on his face.

“Excuse me, we need to tend to important business,” he lied, gritting his teeth as Stuart’s face lit up.

“Oh, what is it?” he asked eagerly, not understanding that Dan was trying to get rid off him.

“Important business,” Dan repeated heatedly. “Alone,” he added when Stuart made to follow them.

“Oh, alright,” he said disappointedly before he caught himself and smiled brightly again. “See you later then!”

Dan grumbled in response, not bothering to tell him that they definitely _wouldn’t_ see each other again later if Dan had any say in the matter.

As they walked away, towards the main room where the meeting would take place, Louise giggled beside him.

“Very funny,” Dan mumbled, glaring at her from the corner of his eye.

She nodded vigorously, grinning at him. “Let’s sit down,” she said and linked their arms.

Dan let her, sighing as she dragged him with her. She walked precariously close towards the front of the room, and Dan had the awful suspicion that she wanted to sit down in the first row.

Now, Dan could let a lot of things slide. Despite his constant grumbling and complaining, he didn’t actually mind all that much whenever Louise teased or nettled him. But, one thing that he absolutely had no desire of ever having to live through again was sitting in the spotlight during a vampire meeting.

It was no surprise that vampires had a lot of time on their hands. Most didn’t mind whenever a task took a bit longer, since they had more than enough of it. However, that also meant that meetings could last an awful lot of hours. One time Dan had sat at the front and it had been just his luck that that exact meeting had taken place over the span of no less than five hours, making him want to rip out his eyes _and_ ears. There was nothing worse than a few hundreds of years old vampires complaining about the youth, or the community, or anything else really that wasn’t conform to their exact wishes.

Since then Dan had made sure to always sit at the back so he was able to sneak in a few minutes of sleep at least whenever he was bored out of his mind - which was most of the time to be fair.

So when Louise walked towards those seats of doom, Dan used his taller frame to his advantage and steered them in the opposite direction.

“Dan-” Louise started to say, only to be interrupted by Dan.

“ _No_ ,” he said resolutely. It must’ve come out more forceful than he had wanted it to because she didn’t even protest, just silently followed Dan to the back. Maybe she still felt a little bit guilty about breaking Dan’s lamp and therefore decided to cut him some slack. Either way, Dan was glad she didn’t put up a fight because he definitely wouldn’t have given in.

Soon after they’d sat down more vampires entered, among them a small girl. She looked to be about twelve but was in reality older than Dan. He wasn’t sure but thought that she’d said to be around five hundred years old. He was glad that he’d been turned with twenty-four. He couldn’t even imagine how difficult it must be to live as a child for the rest of eternity, especially since it became apparent much sooner that she wasn’t changing, making it difficult for her stay somewhere for long. In fact, Dan was pretty sure that it was her last year in this town. They’d arrived at the same time, probably two years ago, and Dan planned to stay another while until he was at least “thirty”.

It didn’t take long for most of the seats to be taken and soon enough one of the older vampires, Dan believed him to be called William, started the meeting. Dan stopped listening mere minutes into it, already bored out of his mind.

He almost fell asleep several times too if it hadn’t been for Louise ramming her elbow painfully hard into his side. A few times he thought about faking needing to go to the toilet and just stay there, until he remembered that everyone, especially Louise, would know he was just trying to get away, since vampires didn’t need to use the toilet. Dan had used that trick a few times but that had always been in the company of humans, where one could easily use the excuse of an upset stomach to leave early.

Dan squirmed in his seat, trying to at least get comfortable. He didn’t quite manage it though, the hard, wooden back of the chair still digging painfully into his spine.

He sighed for about the millionth time already and fished his phone out of his pocket to look at the time. When he unlocked it, he froze, simply staring at the screen, the bright display illuminating his face.

When having fallen to the floor, the phone had gone into standby, freezing on the last thing Dan had been doing before dropping it. Which had been saving Phil’s number.

Dan could see Louise’s disapproving stare from the corner of his eye, so he lowered the display brightness as much as it would go down, and tried to hide the fact that he was more focused on the phone than the person droning on at the front of the room.

Before he knew what he was doing, he’d opened a text message, typing a simple ‘hi’ and hitting send.

A second later he already regretting having sent a text at all and wished that he had special powers to turn back time and make his action undone. Why had he thought that sending a text to Phil was a good idea?

Well, he hadn’t thought at all, that was the problem. If he had, he certainly would never have contacted Phil. And why had he saved his number anyway? He hadn’t even _wanted_ to.

Dan’s inner turmoil was interrupted by the loud vibrating of his phone. At least two or three vampires, including Louise, turned towards him at hearing the sound, condemning expressions on their faces.

“Sorry,” Dan mumbled quickly and turned off the vibrations. He shoved the phone into his pocket but fished it out again a moment later when no one was looking at him anymore.

**Phil:** _Hey ^_^_

Dan stared at the simple text, trying to understand how Phil had managed to convey his bubbly personality in such a short concatenation of symbols.

He was torn between placing his phone back in his pocket or answering as he kept his gaze firmly glued to the screen. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering texting Phil back.

But then again, this meeting _was_ pretty boring and maybe conversing with Phil via text would be amusing enough to at least distract him? Before he could change his mind, Dan’s thumbs flew over the small keyboard.

**Dan:** _what are u up to_

Dan immediately wanted to throw his phone against the wall as soon as he hit send. _What are u up to?_ Dear Lord, the only thing missing from that was the _mate_ at the end. Ugh, why did he have to be like this?

A few seconds later, the display lit up with an answer from Phil.

**Phil:** _Reading a book :) You?_

Dan released the breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. Not that he cared but at least Phil was still willing to text him back despite his stupid question.  

**Dan:** _what book? I’m in a meeting_

**Phil:** _I gather it’s not very interesting? ;) It’s Stephen King’s It._

Dan’s eyes widened. _Stephen King’s It?_ He honestly never would’ve thought Phil to be the guy to like horror literature of all things. If Dan had thought about - which obviously he hadn’t - he’d have guessed Phil to be entertained by romance novels or other similar crap, with his constant sunny attitude, and not like he’d enjoy murder and blood.

Also, Dan didn’t trust people who used wink emoticons. They just looked... wrong, whatever the intent.

**Dan:** _let’s put it like this I’d rather rip out my own eyeballs then suffer thru another hour of this. how do you sleep after reading that?!_

**Phil:** _I hope it doesn’t last too long then, for the sake of your eyesight.  
Deeply :P _

Dan couldn’t help but snort quietly. So Phil was a joker.  

**Dan:** _haha_

**Dan:** _srsly though do clowns not freak you out_

Dan threw a quick glance towards Louise who seemed to be avidly listening to the person speaking at the front. Dan didn’t even bother trying to make out what the topic was. He probably wouldn’t be interested anyway.

**Phil:** _They do!! I’d run away screaming if I saw one_

Dan was typing an answer when another text from Phil came in.

**Phil:** _And then I’d trip and get eaten :(_

Dan had to press his hand to his mouth to stop himself from bursting out laughing. A small snort escaped him anyway, causing Louise to look at him with her brows furrowed. _Everything okay_ , she mouthed, confusion evident in her gaze.

Dan vigorously nodded, hoping that she would never want to know what had just happened. He concentrated back on his phone, his thumbs dancing over the display.

**Dan:** _you can’t be that clumsy you work in a cafe_

**Phil:** _I never said I was clumsy!_

**Dan:** _sure_

**Dan:** _mr clumsy_

**Phil:** _:(_

Dan had to repress laughter once again. At this point he had no idea what was going on at all or if the meeting was nearing its end - it most probably wasn’t - but he didn’t care either way. He actually enjoyed himself, having a mindless conversation with Phil. It almost made him forget that he was supposed to dislike Phil. _Almost._

Over the course of the next few minutes turning into hours, Dan kept sending and receiving texts to and from Phil. He learned that Phil liked video games and Muse and that he’d been to two of their concerts already. Dan was endlessly jealous as he hadn’t managed to go to one yet but was only playing it up a bit until Phil suggested that they should go to the next one together, managing to bring Dan back down to earth with a bang.

As he looked up from his phone’s display, his gaze sweeping over the variety of vampires sitting in front of him, he remembered that Phil was human. Once this meeting was over, Dan had to go back to ignoring him and keeping him at arm’s distance. Otherwise reality would catch up to him sooner or later. Because Phil was human, _mortal_ , someone that would grow old and die eventually. And Dan had no desire of watching that happen.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, an update after only 10 days??? what's up with that
> 
> in all seriousness, I've got a question. Would you guys rather have shorter chapters but then less time between updates or longer chapters and therefor longer time between them?  
> cause I'm actually going home on Sunday and I'll hopefully have a lot more time to write over the holidays (if I don't procastinate) so longer chapters would be a possibility  
> let me know what you think
> 
> also, I feel like this story gets continuously worse, sorry

For some reason, the texting didn’t stop, despite Dan wanting it to. It’d been three days since the vampire meeting and among other things, Dan had got to know that Phil had a fondness for house plants - apparently he gave them names, too - that he loved everything to do with horror and that he was quite superstitious. Dan had laughed quite a lot about that last one.

It was nice, really. There were no expectations, no rules he had to abide by. Phil didn’t mind when Dan forgot to text back and he didn’t even complain when Dan answered hours later. Under different circumstances Dan would’ve called their situation perfect. If only Phil hadn’t been human.

Most of the time Dan was trying to repress that fact, to simply have fun and enjoy their interactions, but then he remembered why he hadn’t wanted to talk to Phil in the first place and frowned at his phone.

He didn’t even go to the café to avoid facing Phil and therefore reality. Maybe, if he didn’t talk to Phil face to face for a while and destroy his phone while he was at it, he’d be able to forget about him. It would be better for Phil and for himself.

If Dan was being honest with himself, he knew that Phil would never want him anyway, once he learned what Dan really was. After all, who in their right mind would want to be with a freaking vampire? A creature that lived off other people’s life essence?

Yeah, it was better if Dan avoided Phil altogether. And it was probably time to start looking for an alternate café he could spend his writing sessions in.

However - and wasn’t that the story of his existence - Louise seemed to be of a different disposition. Once she’d got wind of Dan holing himself up in his house for days at a time again, she decided to take drastic measures. That involved waking Dan up at ungodly hours - _10 am is not even an acceptable time to be awake, Louise_ \- forcefully making him dress himself as well as compelling him to go out with her. Dan, who still was neither properly awake nor in the mood to entertain Louise, didn’t pay attention whatsoever to where they were headed. He was just glad when he got to sit down somewhere, immediately pillowing his head on his arms on the table in front of him. It was only several minutes later when he became aware of the chatter around them and a familiar voice that took awhile for Dan’s sleep-muddled brain to register.

When it did, he groaned and lifted his head. Louise was sitting in the chair opposite him, smugly grinning at him as he frowned at her.

“He’s been sneaking looks at you since we came in,” she suddenly said.

“Who? Dan asked, feigning ignorance. He had no idea how she could possibly know about Phil and he really hoped she hadn’t seen him texting Phil.

“You know full well who.” Louise rolled her eyes.

Dan couldn’t stop himself from letting his gaze wander over to the counter at the other side of the room and by default towards Phil, who was standing behind it and talking to a customer. As if he’d sensed Dan looking, Phil’s gaze was suddenly on his and Dan pointedly looked away and back to Louise.

He knew she was going to make a crude comment about him and Phil, and he was about to say something, _anything_ , to beat her to it, but in that exact moment Stacey appeared by their sides.

“Hey,” she said sunnily, smiling at both of them. “What can I get you two?”

“Hi,” Louise said before Dan could even think of getting a word out. “A café au lait for me please and a caramel macchiato for him.”

Stacey looked confused for a short moment, her gaze wandering over towards Dan who just shrugged. Despite him not liking it when someone ordered for him, he didn’t particularly mind it when Louise was the one doing it. She was even more impatient than him and she knew what Dan wanted anyway.

Stacey nodded as well and after scribbling their order down on her notepad, she hurried back to the counter where she handed the order over to Phil. Since Dan was watching Stacey, he accidentally locked eyes with Phil for a short moment before he tore his gaze away. There’d been a touch of a smile visible on Phil’s lips and despite Dan not wanting to, he couldn’t help but reciprocate it. That was, until he noticed Louise grinning smugly at him. Immediately, he started to frown, albeit a bit half-heartedly.

He didn’t understand what it was about Phil that made him feel this way, completely different from what he was used to. Before he could start thinking about his emotions more deeply, which surely would’ve resulted in yet another existential crisis, Stacey reappeared, setting down their hot beverages in front of them.

“There you go.”

“Thanks,” Dan said, taking a sip of his macchiato and burning his tongue on the hot coffee, which, thankfully, healed immediately.

Stacey was hovering kind of awkwardly next to their table and Dan could only guess what would happen next. It definitely couldn’t be anything good.

“Y’know, we’re having this kind of office party on Saturday,” she said casually, marking the _office party_ in air quotes.

“Have fun,” Dan replied, continuing sipping his coffee. He was sure that she was having an ulterior motive with telling him about this party, but there was no way in hell he’d rise to the bait.

Louise, however, seemed to be a bit too interested in the party. “Is that so?” she asked sweetly, and Dan swore he could actually see her eyes twinkling.

“Yeah,” Stacey said enthusiastically. “We’ve actually rented a few tables at the pub ‘round the corner and we’re looking to get together with as many people as possible!”

Louise turned towards Dan, grinning again. He could feel that whatever plan she had just come up with, he’d have no say in it whatsoever, so he just lifted an eyebrow.

“Sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Louise said without taking her eyes off Dan.

“Yeah,” Stacey smiled at them, totally oblivious to the fact that him and Louise were having a stare-off that Dan was slowly but surely losing.

“You should come,” she then added, looking at Dan expectedly.

_Right._

Dan being forced to have actual social interactions? Most certainly not.

He was about to say so and excuse himself politely when Louise beat him to it.

“Yes, Dan, you totally should. You don’t get outside enough anyway.”

Dan glared at her, hoping to convey in his gaze how much he was going to kill her later when they weren’t surrounded by so many potential witnesses. “I don’t think-“

“Come on, Dan, it’ll be fun!” Louise interrupted him. Sometimes he asked himself why he was even friends with her.

“Phil’s coming as well,” Stacey chimed in, looking at Dan expectedly.

How was that supposed to convince him to come? That made him want to accept even less! He needed to _distance_ himself from Phil.

“Oh, perfect!” Louise exclaimed. “They’re so cute, don’t you think?”

“Louise!” Dan hissed and kicked her shin as hard as he could, but she didn’t even flinch.

To his relief, Stacey didn’t reply to that and just smiled. “So, what do you think, Dan?” she said. Dan knew that this was her way of offering him a way out. She didn’t know of Dan’s doubts and troubles, she was only trying to give him an opportunity of getting to know Phil better without it being awkward.

“I’ll think about it,” he mumbled, not wanting to disappoint her and also trying to satisfy Louise at the same time so she wouldn’t annoy him with this any further.

“Great.” With that, Stacey turned around and walked away. Probably to tell Phil of the news.

Dear Lord, what had Dan got himself into again?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so this chapter isn't really that much longer but since exam season is coming up I probably won't be able to write all that much this month so I thought this is better than nothing  
> (also, I know I said that I'd have time to write during the holidays but I did absolutely fuck all over Christmas and New Year)
> 
> this chapter is probably not like anyone was expecting this story to go but eh, there you go

Dan had pondered if him going to that pub evening was a good idea. He’d come to the conclusion that firstly, it wasn’t a good idea in the slightest, but that secondly, nothing could go horribly wrong. Well, at least he hoped so.

There were a few moments where he’d decided he wouldn’t go but then Louise had called him no less than three times, and he was scared that she’d actually kill him if he stayed at home. So he eventually ended up going, leaving fashionably late - Dan couldn’t remember any moment in his two hundred years of existence when he’d been on time - and telling himself to calm the fuck down. He couldn’t stop fidgeting with the hem of his jumper the whole ten minutes he sat in the backseat of the uber he’d ordered to take him to the pub. Normally, he would’ve walked but he knew that he probably would’ve chickened out halfway and gone back to his flat. It wasn’t that he was afraid, he  _ wasn’t _ , but the thought of Phil being there and having to interact with him made Dan feel like he’d drunk too much blood. 

At the same time though, imagining Phil not being there was almost equally as bad. Then there wouldn’t be anyone for him to talk to apart from Stacey, who he didn’t even know particularly well. For about the three-hundredth time that day he asked himself why he’d agreed to this in the first place and cursed Louise for having to go through this. 

Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately, depending on the point of view - he arrived at the pub before he could change his mind. He quickly paid the driver and got out, breathing in deeply before opening the door and stepping inside. 

Despite there being a non smoking rule, he immediately smelled cigarette smoke and was glad that he didn’t actually depend on absorbing oxygen and could therefore avoid the horrible smell. There were a lot of things Dan didn’t like but cigarette smoke was definitely one of the first things on that list. 

The pub was packed due to it being the weekend and Dan had to fight his way through to the bar where he ordered a cocktail. Much to his chagrin, it was physically impossible for him to get drunk. That didn’t stop him from trying anew every time he had the chance though. 

He’d not even fully taken hold of his cocktail - a black one that fit his aesthetic very well -  when he heard his name being called. He turned around, spotting Stacey, a few of her colleagues and people he didn’t know sitting at a table in the corner. Despite having shoved another table in front of the other one, they all sat quite crowded and Dan already regretted having agreed to this. Socialising was difficult enough when it was with one person in an otherwise empty room, but with the level of noise and lack of personal space this was going to be hell. 

He forced himself to move forwards regardless. It was only when he came close that he spotted Phil and his stomach immediately sunk as soon as he realised that Phil was cramped between two people at the other end of the table. 

He forced a smile onto his lips as Stacey introduced him as a friend, even though he wanted to protest at that because, to be completely honest, they weren’t really friends. He sat down next to her anyway, at the edge of the second table since there was no other place available. 

Despite him not wanting to, his gaze wandered over to where Phil sat and they made eye contact, Phil smiling at him happily. Dan immediately looked down at his drink. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed that he hadn’t even been given the chance to sit next to Phil or if he was happy about it. After all, he hadn’t even wanted to be near Phil, right?

Right. 

Thanks to Louise and her stupid vampire meetings and her need to see him socialise, he was now forced to suffer through this weird  _ thing  _ he had with Phil, where he wasn’t even sure if he  _ liked  _ Phil. 

Still, he couldn’t help but look over to Phil again, only to find Phil’s gaze already on him. Dan was pretty sure that if he had blood circulation, he probably would’ve blushed right now. He was kind of glad he didn’t though and quickly looked away again, focusing on the conversation Stacey had with the person sitting on her other side. They were talking about football, a topic that didn’t interest Dan one bit, so he kind of pretended to listen while sipping his drink and stopping himself from gazing at Phil every few minutes.

The second a guy named Ben - at least Dan thought his name was Ben - announced that his glass was getting considerably emptier, Dan sensed his chance to escape, if only for a little while.

“I’ll get the next round,” he all but yelled to be heard over the high level of noise. 

“Thanks, mate!” Ben - or was it John? - exclaimed. Dan forced a smile onto his lips. He definitely did not appreciate this man calling him ‘mate’ but would bear it to have a few seconds of rest. He turned around to head over to the bar when he heard someone else speak up.

“I’ll help you!”

He sighed, not able to stop himself in time, and then started walking. Well, it was probably more like wading than walking with the way he had to stop every few metres to get through another group of people. 

It took no time at all for Phil to catch up with him despite him having sat in the corner. When he did, he very briefly touched Dan’s elbow to let him know he was there, and Dan felt the warmth of Phil’s fingers through his shirt. 

“Hey,” Phil said as they’d made their way to the bar, Dan trying to get the attention of one of the bartenders. 

Dan really wanted to ignore Phil, he did, but he kind of moved automatically, turning towards Phil and smiling somewhat. It probably looked more like a grimace than a genuine smile but the corners of Phil’s mouth pulled upwards regardless.

The simple greeting Dan had wanted to utter got stuck in his throat at the sight of Phil smiling at him so softly, like seeing Dan was the best thing to happen to him today. It made Dan’s stomach churn and in a sudden flurry of recklessness he decided to just go with the flow. Fuck what his mind said about giving in to Phil! After all, he was more than capable of keeping his feelings in check and not developing anything further than friendly emotions towards Phil! And really, Louise was right, Dan could use a few more friends, even if he defined ‘a few’ slightly differently than her. 

Instead of saying anything, Dan just bumped shoulders with Phil, which, judging from Phil’s even brighter smile, had probably been the right decision. 

They couldn’t talk over the high level of noise at the bar so they just stood next to each other in silence until all the drinks arrived. There was a moment while they were carrying the beers, and two brightly coloured cocktails for Phil and him, back over to the table where Phil stumbled and almost proceeded to let go of the drinks. He managed to catch himself at the last second however, right after Dan had grabbed his elbow to steady him, which resulted in Dan awkwardly holding onto Phil’s arm for a few seconds too long while balancing the tray on his other hand. Despite Dan not having actually helped him, Phil smiled at him, big and bright, and Dan immediately let go of him. He was really glad about the lack of blood circulation, otherwise he’d probably be bright red at the moment. 

They sat down, miraculously without Phil spilling anything - Dan involuntarily thought back to the day Phil had managed to smash the mug in the café and despite that being in the past, Dan couldn’t help but clench his teeth at the thought of that sleazy man having the nerves to yell at Phil. 

A subtle touch at his elbow caught him off-guard and he startled, swinging around to face Phil next to him. 

“You okay?” Phil asked softly, brows furrowed. 

It took Dan a second to answer, but when he did, it was with a confident, “ _ Of course _ I am.”

Phil looked like he wanted to protest but didn’t actually reply. Instead, he sipped at his cocktail and made a pleased noise. “This is amazing!” he exclaimed and shoved the drink towards Dan.

Dan just lifted an eyebrow, not sure what Phil wanted him to do.

“Try it!” 

Dan eyed the drink suspiciously, but nipped at it anyway and had to admit that it did taste quite nice. Not as good as his dark blue cocktail, but still. Actually, he wasn’t quite sure what exactly was even in his cocktail. Not that it mattered much since it wouldn’t have any effect on him anyway. 

“It’s okay,” Dan shrugged, kind of to see if he could rile Phil up a bit.

“Okay?” Phil echoed, his eyes going back and forth between Dan and the cocktail. “This is definitely more than okay!” 

“If you say so,” Dan replied and had to try really hard to stop himself from grinning at the frown on Phil’s face.

“Fine!” Phil snapped and snatched the drink away from Dan, but a second later Dan could see Phil looking at him from the corner of his eye, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

Then he was suddenly laughing, shaking Dan in the process since they were sitting so close their shoulders were touching. It was weird, in a way, to see Phil being so happy in Dan’s company, but it made him smile regardless. 

When Phil had finally stopped laughing, Dan slid his cocktail over to him. It wasn’t the same he’d had before but rather a bright blue one. Phil’s smile faltered when he realised what Dan wanted and he took the glass off him, their hands touching briefly.

“You’re freezing,” Phil said, his eyes widening. “Are you okay?” Instead of trying Dan’s cocktail, his other hand came up to cover Dan’s, and it took Dan a second to realise what Phil was on about.

“Oh,” he started, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for his skin being dead cold that wasn’t  _ ‘I’m fine, I’m just dead, y’know’ _ . “I, uh, I have this illness,” he said and hoped that he came across as believable. He didn’t know why he suddenly cared about Phil not thinking he was lying. 

“Oh God,” Phil breathed. The grip on Dan’s hand tightened.

“It’s fine,” Dan quickly reassured him. “It’s just that there’s not a lot of blood going into my limbs so my skin always feels cold. But it’s okay. I’m fine.”

Phil frowned, not looking completely convinced at Dan’s words.

“Really,” Dan added and, without thinking about it, turned around his hand under Phil’s and shortly intertwined their fingers, squeezing Phil’s hand in reassurance. As soon as Phil squeezed back however, Dan noticed what he’d done and quickly retracted his hand. 

“Okay,” Phil said and nodded. He still eyed Dan warily from the side but finally took a sip of Dan’s cocktail, without saying anything further about the topic. Which Dan was very glad about since he obviously didn’t even know the name of this supposed ‘illness’ that he had. 

They spent the rest of the evening talking, jumping from one topic to another. It reminded Dan a lot of their text conversations, and for once it didn’t feel impossibly strenuous to talk to someone. It was comfortable and, in a way, even better to see Phil’s direct reaction to the things Dan said, instead of just reading a few words that couldn’t convey Phil’s smile and the way his eyes lit up with it. 

All too fast people declared an end to the night - though it was certainly good for some, as John, or whatever he was actually called, was so drunk at that point he couldn’t walk in a straight line anymore. However, that also meant everyone had to go their separate ways and if there was one thing Dan was absolutely horrendous at, it was saying goodbye. He just never quite knew what to do and he certainly wasn’t one to give hugs to everyone only because they’d exchanged a word or two.

Luckily for him, mostly everyone was too drunk to say proper goodbyes. Outside the pub, they parted into two groups, one heading home via taxi so they would actually get home and not fall asleep on a random street somewhere, and the other one travelling by foot. Dan, surprisingly, was in the latter. He’d been in a discussion with Phil about music when the others had to decided to get going and there was no way that Dan could desert the conversation there, not when he needed to educate Phil on one of his favourite topics. 

It wasn’t long until it was just the two of them as they were the only ones living in the north side of town. 

“You need to listen to it in a calm environment without distractions, otherwise you won’t be able to properly appreciate it,” Dan said, waving his arms about to get the important message of his words across.

“Okay,” Phil replied, looking amused. “So not while you’re around.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan spluttered, and almost tripped over his own feet as he turned towards Phil. 

“Nothing,” Phil said innocently and pressed a hand to his mouth. Dan could hear him giggling anyway. 

“So what you’re saying is that I’m a distraction.”

“Well,” Phil replied and avoided Dan’s gaze, accompanied by the subtle increase of his breathing. His hands were buried deeply in the front pockets of his jeans and if Dan didn’t know better, he would’ve said that Phil was nervous. But Phil didn’t _get_ _nervous_ , he was always unashamedly himself.

“You are.” 

This time Dan actually stumbled but Phil was by his side immediately, preventing him from falling face first onto the concrete.

Wait, what?

“Uh,” Phil said, one hand holding onto Dan’s arm tightly while the other one was slung around his waist. “Not in a bad way,” he then added.

What did  _ not in a bad way _ even mean? How was he supposed to be a good distraction? Did Phil-

Dan was pulled from his thought by the tightening of Phil’s grip on his waist, and all of a sudden he became increasingly aware of how close Phil was to him. He was able to properly smell his aftershave, mixed with a tiny amount of sweat and a whiff of hormones, and hear the fast rhythm his heart was beating. 

When he looked up, Phil’s gaze was already on him and if Dan had had more time to think about it, he would’ve laughed about how much their situation seemed to come straight out of a romance novel. A second later however, he was so fixated on Phil’s eyes - were they multicoloured? - that he didn’t even notice Phil leaning in until there were suddenly lips pressed to his. Dan acted as if on autopilot; his arm wound around Phil’s back, pulling him closer, and he sighed onto Phil’s lips before actually starting to kiss back. 

It was nice, Phil’s warm skin on his, his hand at the back of his neck - and since when did Dan allow anyone to touch his neck - the short puffs of breath Phil released now and again. After having spent so much time around vampires, or at least considerably more time around vampires than humans, it felt good to be with someone who was actually alive and breathing and didn’t make three hundred year old jokes. It was vitalising.

That was, until Dan’s hand automatically came up to Phil’s neck, settling on top of his main artery and feeling his increasing pulse. Dan felt this pull inside him and he leant away, ready to kiss his way down Phil’s jaw and to his neck and-

Fuck, what the fuck was he doing?!

Dan pushed Phil away, causing him to stumble backwards. He didn’t wait for Phil to regain his footing again. Instead, he turned around immediately and started running. 

 

*

 

_ August 1915 _

 

Dan couldn’t remember a time without war or conflict. Most of the wars during his time hadn’t even occurred in England or affected him in any way but still, he hated all of them regardless. 

Of course he knew that not every war was the same and that not all of them had been born out of a disagreement over land ownership, and that some of the wars had been caused by revolutions, by good causes. And still, war brought nothing but death and destruction as far as Dan was concerned. 

Fortunately for him, none of his close friends or family had been injured yet but there’d been several bomb attacks on the United Kingdom so far, the first one in London had only happened two months prior, killing seven civilians in North and East London. 

Dan still remembered the news headline vividly from the day after the attack.  _ ZEPPELIN RAID OVER OUTER LONDON - “Many Fires Reported, but These not Absolutely Connected with Airships.” _

At that point no one had known the causes of all of those fires in London that night. And no one had known that it would get worse. 

Of course, John had been endlessly optimistic as he was about everything, telling Dan that surely the war would soon be over, that there was no need to be afraid, that they would get through it all,  _ together _ . 

Neither of them had known. 

 

*

 

_ March 1916 _

 

Dan had never served a single second in the Armed Forces and had no desire to change that anytime soon. Even if he’d wanted to, it would’ve been too dangerous. Being a vampire had its advantages with being immortal, however, the problem with that was that it was awfully suspicious when someone got hit by several bullets, only to get up a second later, seemingly unhurt. 

Therefore, all vampires were prohibited from partaking in any and all war-related events so as not to draw attention to themselves. 

Up until the 2nd of March that had worked quite well for Dan and my some miracle he’d also persuaded John not to join the Armed Forces either. This day, however, had put an end to that. With the Military Service Act 1916 they’d become liable to be called up for service.

It left Dan with the only choice of fleeing to the countryside to work in a munitions factory under the disguise of disability rendering him unable to join the military. He urged John to come with him but he wasn’t having any of it. For some reason that Dan didn’t understand, John felt it was his duty to fight for his country. 

Dan was too scared to even think about John’s mortality, so he didn’t. Everything was going to be fine, he knew it would be. But that didn’t change the fact that it hurt to see him walk out the door, turning around shortly to smile at Dan, as if to say  _ ‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry’ _ . Dan couldn’t stop worrying. Each time the period between John’s letters got longer and longer, Dan felt unease and concern rip at him and it got worse every time. 

 

*

 

_ 5\. December 1917 _

 

Dear Daniel, 

I hope you receive this letter in time for Christmas. I might even be home before it arrives if I am lucky, but the only way that I could go home just now is if I were to be seriously injured. 

I apologise for not writing sooner - there was no time for me to put aside for writing to you, as I’m sure you’ll understand. 

The winter is harsh. Everyone is desperately trying to keep warm. All I can think about is the fireplace in our old house and how we used to sit in front of it, sheltering ourselves from the icy cold outside. 

When the war is over and I am back with you, we can settle somewhere in the countryside. I am picturing a lovely little cottage with a spacious back garden and a dog, perhaps? 

As I have said in my last letter to you, I am sure that the war will be over soon now, and then it won’t be long until we see each other again. I look most forward to that. It is what keeps me through awfully cold nights such as this one.  

Love to all, your friend John

 

*

 

_ 18\. December 1917 _

 

Dear John,

I know you won’t be home for Christmas as surely there would’ve been word from you by now if you had the opportunity to come back. Despite the circumstances, I hope you have the Christmas you wish for. 

It’s not the same as having you here but I will keep you in my thoughts and I will make sure to drink a glass of that mulled wine you love so dearly. 

A cottage in the countryside sounds lovely. How do you feel about Devon? I am sure we could find a quiet little place there where we can live in peace. 

You already know how much I adore dogs. I don’t think we will be able to afford one but it is my dream to adopt one some day. 

I cannot wait for this dreadful war to be over. Work in the munition factory isn’t bad, overall, but it is quite monotonous without having someone to tell about my day afterwards.

All my love, your friend Daniel

 

*

 

_ November 1918 _

 

The war was finally over. 

And yet Dan couldn’t rejoice. The last letter he had received from John had been in December 1917 and there had been no word from him since. As far as Dan knew, John was officially missing in action, which meant that there was the possibility of him still being alive somewhere. He just hadn’t been found yet.

Dan knew that clinging to that tiny sliver of hope that he just couldn’t give up wasn’t particularly smart. The longer time went on, the more unlikely it became that he’d ever see John again. But that didn’t mean that Dan was just going to give up. 

No, Dan would wait for him to come back home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now know so much about GB during the First World War. I spent, like, over an hour simply researching the history of the UK during WW1 as well as looking for specific events that happened to be able to write that last part.  
> what I want to say is: the historical context is mostly accurate as you'll be able to read up on [here](http://www.historyextra.com/article/military-history/9-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-londons-first-zeppelin-raid-1915-first-world-war), [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_United_Kingdom_home_front_during_World_War_I) and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_Kingdom_during_World_War_I).


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am updating on time?? what??
> 
> this chapter is a bit shorter but the next one will be a lot longer (I know that bc I've already written half of it)

Dan stared at his phone, willing it to make a sound.

It didn’t, of course, because since when did anything ever go the way Dan wanted it to? 

Instead, he was limited to just keep glancing at his phone, not quite believing that there hadn’t even been a single text message. There was always the option of  _ him _ picking up the phone and writing something, anything, but then again, he wouldn’t know what to write anyway.

_ ‘Sorry for pushing you away’ _ ?

_ ‘Sorry that I kissed you when I shouldn’t have’ _ ?

Yeah, for some reason Dan couldn’t see that going down all too well.

The thing was that he wasn’t really sorry for reacting the way he had. He had his reasons after all. But why did he still feel uneasy and guilty when he thought back to last night and remembered the look of utter surprise on Phil’s face? It didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Dan could admit that he liked Phil to some extent, otherwise he would never have humoured him. On the other side of that, however, was the fact that he’d promised himself from the start that he wouldn’t actually get involved with Phil and had managed to do the exact opposite anyway. It was all a bit of a nightmare, if Dan was being honest.

He didn’t want Phil, but at the same time he did. And not just as a friend either, which made the whole thing all the more complicated.  

Was this the same shitty storyline every vampire was forced to live through? Was Dan’s fate to become a cheap copy of Edward Cullen, yearning for a human and basically stalking them until they loved him back, only to drop them and almost drive them to suicide?

That didn’t sound particularly appealing and to be honest, Dan would rather kill himself and spare everyone the misery of having to experience  _ that _ .

So he did what any other sensible, over two hundred years old adult would do: he sat on his couch, snuggled up in a big blanket, ate a tub of ice-cream and wallowed in self-pity. 

 

*

 

It had been almost three days and there still had been no word from Phil. Dan had contemplated texting him, this time actually going so far as to typing out actual messages but he deleted them all after a moment of consideration. 

Would Phil even want to hear from Dan at this point? Would he forgive Dan if Dan explained himself?

Maybe this was for the better. This way, he couldn’t hurt Phil anymore than he’d already had and, wait a minute, where did that even come from, Dan not wanting to hurt Phil?

It was like Phil had managed to break through all of Dan’s defenses and had taken root right in the middle of his unbreachable fortress, not planning to leave anytime soon. And yeah, maybe Dan didn’t want him to leave. Maybe. But maybe he also did?

Ugh, he was giving himself a headache with the way he was going round in circles. He needed to take his mind off of Phil, so he made the spontaneous decision of going for a walk. Surely some fresh air - even if it wasn’t needed - would clear his mind and help him come to a conclusion about all of this. 

He cast a glance outside and noticed that it was already dark and therefore perfect for him, so he threw off the blanket that’d been draped over his legs and got up. He shrugged on his leather jacket - there was never a time not to look stylish - and stepped out of the door into the light of the streetlamp. It was quiet, apart from one car that zipped past him way over the speed limit. There were hardly any other people outside, though that was probably due to it being after 10pm already. 

Hardly any moonlight broke through the thick barrier of clouds, making everything seem even more eerie, like he was in a horror movie and about to be murdered. The only thing missing was the fog dancing around his feet. Oh, and that he was a frightened, defenseless human. 

Since he was out and about anyway, Dan decided to buy some new cereal. His at home was almost empty and he knew that he’d be angry at himself for not taking this opportunity to get a new box tomorrow. The store he went into - the only one that was still open at this late hour - was empty save for the cashier. It took Dan way too long to pick up a box, especially considering he always chose the same brand anyway. 

On his way back, he thought that taking a shortcut through one of the dark alleyways surely was a splendid idea, since it would save him time, but he really hadn’t anticipated that there would be someone already waiting for him there. 

He later blamed his mind being all over the place for not noticing sooner - his thoughts filled with a constant stream of  _ Phil, what do I do about Phil, it doesn’t matter, cereal, the cereal is more important now _ . When he did notice however, it was already too late. There was an almost painful pressure on the skin right above his heart and a knife pressed to his throat as he was shoved against one of the brick walls. 

“What,” he managed to get out, completely at a loss as to what was happening.

“And folks say you have good reflexes,” someone laughed next to him. 

Another voice joined the first, “Look at him, he doesn’t even know what’s going on!” 

Suddenly it dawned on Dan. 

The pressure right above his heart, that was a  _ stake _ , ready to kill him once and for all. That meant that these people… had to be vampire hunters. 

He finally lifted his gaze and saw that there were three of them. Two at his sides, holding the stake and knife, and one right in front of him.

“Hello there,” the guy stood before him said. “Ready to join us for the action?”

Dan just glared at him. Of course he wasn’t ready for them to kill him. And why the hell did they want to anyway? Dan never listened to what was being told at vampire meetings but he was pretty sure that Louise had said to him a few months ago that there’d been a truce between hunters and vampires, keeping the hunters from killing any more vampires.  

“What do you want?” Dan asked, irritated about being pressed against a wall and threatened. Though, who wouldn’t be angry about that?

“Well, we are here to bring justice and-”

Dan couldn’t stop himself; he broke out into laughter, leaving the, presumably, leader staring at him with a frown. 

“ _ Justice _ ?” Dan managed to get out and suddenly the guy was right up in his face.

“Shut up, you disgusting human-killing piece of shit,” he snarled, ripping the knife out of the hands of Guy No. 2 on Dan’s left side and pressing it harder onto Dan’s skin.

“Human-killing?” Dan repeated. At this point he felt like he was in a trashy soap opera, incredulously repeating everything the other character had said beforehand.

“Yes!” The main guy pressed the knife down even harder. “You kill humans!” he spat into Dan’s face, making Dan turn his head to the side so he wouldn’t accidentally get the guy’s spit in his eyes.

“Have you been around at all the last hundred years?” Dan just replied cooly. He’d not had to deal with any vampire hunters for the last few decades and even before that they’d been way smarter than this.

The main guy looked even angrier now, ready to take the stake and drive it straight through Dan’s heart.

“David.” As soon as the name had crossed Guy No. 3’s lips, the main guy, David apparently, spun around to face him.

“Don’t say my name in front of him!” he hissed.

Dan really had to repress a laugh. The behaviour of these so-called vampire hunters was certainly quite ridiculous. It almost seemed as if they’d never killed a vampire before. 

“Look,” Dan said and lifted his hands in a placating gesture, which didn’t really have the desired effect due to the cereal box still in his hand. “I’ve never actively killed anyone, be it human or vampire. And I certainly don’t plan to either.”

“Right, and I’m Jesus.” David rolled his eyes.

Dan sighed. “Have you even done any research?”

“Shut up!” Guy No. 3 exclaimed, shaking Dan’s shoulder. Dan just raised an eyebrow. Yeah, that behaviour certainly screamed  _ professional _ . 

“There’s a truce between vampires and hunters, y’know,” Dan continued, unimpressed by Guy No. 3’s grip tightening around his arm. “You can’t just go around killing people anymore.”

David scoffed by Dan referring to vampires as people.

“Especially ones that haven’t even done anything.”

“You could be lying,” Guy No. 2 pointed out.

“I could be,” Dan shrugged. “But I also couldn’t be, and if you kill me and then have the whole of the vampire community on your tail as well as having broken the truce, then that’s really not my fault.”

There was a short moment of silence in which David stared at Dan’s face intently. Dan tried not to give anything away, and when the knife disappeared a second later, he knew that he’d convinced them. Guy No. 2 and 3 let go of him and stepped away. 

“We will be back,” David said, raising the knife and pointing it at Dan.

Dan just raised an eyebrow but refrained from adding something sarcastic that would actually result in having himself killed just as he’d managed to get out of this whole death situation. 

A moment later, the three hunters were gone, just as quickly as they’d appeared. It almost felt like the last few minutes had been a figment of Dan’s imagination. The only thing to prove that it had really happened was the weird pulling sensation at Dan’s throat, indicating that the deep cut David had made was healing. 

Well, Dan certainly hadn’t expected his evening to play out this way.

 

*

 

It was a lot later - Dan was already half asleep which was probably the reason for this rash decision - when he eventually typed out a text message that he actually sent before he could change his mind. Phil still hadn’t contacted him and Dan knew that he wouldn’t. Not after how Dan had treated him. And while he still thought that what had happened was better for everyone involved, he also felt incredibly guilty about leaving Phil hanging like that. Phil deserved better than that, better than Dan. He shouldn’t feel confused or hurt or even angry at himself about something that was entirely Dan’s fault.

With a sudden clarity, Dan realised that Phil was too good for him, that there’d never been a chance of them working out, not with Dan being who he was, not even as friends. Who’d he been kidding anyway? Relationships between humans and vampires were destined to fail.    
No, Phil was better off without him.    


**Dan:** I understand that you don’t want to talk to me anymore but I am sorry for what happened. I know this is cliché but believe me when I say that it wasn’t your fault   
**Dan:** You deserve better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Dan will stop being confused at some point, lol


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with a chapter that's actually longer than usual! :D 
> 
> since it's my birthday, I thought I'd do something nice and post this after two months of not updating (pls don't hate me for taking so long, but like, things happened)
> 
> anyway, I want to take this opportunity and say many thanks to Acespacedweller for being an amazing friend and listening to me whenever I complain about writing, you're the best :) also, thank you to my gf who is also forced to listen to me complaining about this story on a regular basis :D 
> 
> I hope I can get on a regular schedule again after this chapter, esp since I want to finish this fic before the pbb starts, but I'm fully motivated again so it's looking good
> 
> also, I do sometimes post about my writing on tumblr, so if you ever want to know how far I am or if there's a delay, you can check out my tumblr and there's a pretty good chance you'll get to know more there :D
> 
> that being said, I got a comment asking if I'd abandoned this story and if that should ever happen (I don't think it will though bc I'm determined to finish this!!), then I will make an announcement on here. So unless that happens, I will finish this fic :) 
> 
> anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter and please let me know what you think :)

Phil didn’t understand. He really didn’t.

One minute he’d been kissing Dan, the next he’d been pushed away, left to stare after Dan running away from him, without any explanation whatsoever. Phil was confused about what had happened to say the least and had continued to stand in the same spot where Dan had left him for quite some time.

Eventually, he’d started his journey home, a series of emotions surging through him – confusion, anger, disbelief,  _ hurt _ .

He just didn’t understand why Dan would leave him standing like that. Sure, it had been obvious to Phil that Dan was usually reclusive and reserved and that he didn’t quite seem to like people all that much in general. But despite of that, Phil’d thought that they’d got on quite well and that Dan had liked him. If not in a romantic sense, then at least as a friend.

Apparently he’d been wrong.

That didn’t explain why Dan had kissed him back though and had then changed his mind. Was he afraid of being caught kissing another man? Was he confused as to what he was feeling? Whatever his reasons were, he could’ve at least said a few words about them, instead of leaving Phil completely in the dark.

Three days went by without any attempt at contact from Dan. Phil was more hurt than angry at this point and he wasn’t quite sure if he even wanted to hear from Dan anymore. Maybe, if he’d at least sent a short text that evening or the next morning - not even necessarily with an apology or a reason for his behaviour, just anything would’ve sufficed - then Phil would’ve at least known how to go on from there. 

The silence, however, was broken eventually, just when Phil had come to believe that Dan would simply vanish from his life, like he’d never even been there.

He’d gone to bed early the previous day since he had the morning shift at the café and didn’t want to serve customers looking like a zombie. He didn’t think about Dan at all while getting ready - which, to be perfectly honest, was probably due to him being terribly tired despite seven hours of sleep - so him dropping his phone upon seeing two texts messages from Dan was a quite reasonable reaction in his opinion.

He was almost,  _ almost _ , too afraid to look at them, his palms sweaty when he picked his phone up off the floor, but his curiosity won over. His heart sank as he read the texts. 

_ It wasn’t your fault. You deserve better. _

No, that wasn’t right. Those text messages basically screamed low self-worth, and while Phil had initially been angry and hurt at Dan’s reaction, he couldn’t let Dan go like that. They needed to talk about what had happened; Phil needed to let Dan know that he knew what he wanted and that that was Dan. He didn’t deserve  _ better  _ \- and what did that even  _ mean _ ? That Phil’s judgement of people’s characters was poorly? 

Phil couldn’t think of a reason why him being with Dan would be a problem, only if Dan truly didn’t want that. Oh, and maybe if he was a serial killer. For some reason Phil kind of doubted that though. 

He went through the different options he had in his mind. He could simply wait and see if Dan came back on his own accord and then Phil could try and confront him. That, however, would require Dan to show up at the café and Phil was somehow sceptical of Dan doing that. 

He could also text Dan, telling him that they needed to talk and see what Dan’s reaction would be. Then he’d certainly know where he stood with Dan. The problem with that was that Dan could simply choose not to answer at all, leaving Phil as clueless as he was. 

That left one last option: going over to Dan’s house and talk to him in person. While Phil felt a little bit uncomfortable with that, since he didn’t want to force Dan to talk, he also thought this to be the most sensible thing to do. They were both adults after all and if nothing else, Phil thought he deserved an explanation of some sort.

Despite being tired and therefore a bit sluggish, anxiety bubbled up in him during his shift at the café. He messed orders up more times than he liked to admit and one time he even poured orange juice into a coffee instead of milk. It got so bad in the end that Stacey told him he could leave earlier. He was probably as relieved as she was when he finally stepped outside and made his way over to Dan’s.

Finding out Dan’s address had involved a lot of people since Phil had never been to Dan’s place before and didn’t know anyone apart from Louise who would have been. He’d had to ask Stacey, who for some miracle was in possession of Louise’s number, which was then given to him. To his surprise, Louise hadn’t even hesitated to forward Dan’s address to him. Phil wondered if she knew about what had happened, if Dan had told her. It didn’t even matter all that much because she surely knew that something was up after him asking so blatantly where Dan lived. After all, he could’ve just asked Dan himself. 

Due to Phil’s non-existing orienteering skills, it took him a while to find the house, but when he did, it was obvious it was the right one. The front garden was void of anything alive - apart from a patch of grass here and there - and there were no decorations anywhere. It was very Dan, for a lack of a better description.

The nervousness that had plagued Phil the entire day intensified and he felt sick to the point where he actually considered turning around and pretending that he’d never even come here. The thing was, though, that despite being anxious about facing Dan, there was also a part of him that wanted to see him again. Even if this might be the last time, Phil couldn’t stand the thought of not trying to fix things. 

Before he could change his mind, he quickly rang the bell and stepped back, waiting. Seconds ticked by as Phil stood before the door without anything happening. He hadn’t even entertained the idea that Dan mightn’t be home. For all he knew Dan could’ve left the country in the meantime, though it did seem a bit dramatic to leave simply to avoid Phil.

He rang the bell again, silently praying for Dan to just open the door. Nervousness sat like a stone in his stomach, weighing him down. He knew that if he didn’t talk to Dan now, he probably wouldn’t try again. 

He’d almost given up, had started to turn away, when the door abruptly opened. “What?” he heard Dan bark, his voice grouchy and unwelcoming.

For a moment, Phil just gaped at Dan, taking in the surprise on his face upon seeing Phil. He obviously hadn’t expected Phil to show up at his place - he was in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, his hair curly,  _ curly _ , and unkempt. 

“Hey,” Phil said. Even he could hear his voice trembling from anxiety, but he pushed on, knowing that he had to get this off his chest. If he didn’t say it now, he never would.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything, and I’m sorry if you really didn’t want to see me again, but I can’t stop thinking about what happened,” the words kept tumbling out of his mouth. “I’ll leave you alone after this if that’s truly what you want, but I-” Phil swallowed nervously, feeling too exposed all of a sudden, standing in front of Dan out in the open, “I, um, I like you, and I thought, well, I thought you liked me, too.” Phil stopped there for a moment, braving looking at Dan. His wide eyes were focused on Phil, his hands tightly strung together in front of him, like he was trying to keep himself from falling apart.

“I think the least you could do is give me an explanation,” Phil added quietly when Dan didn’t say anything. Even then it took a while until Dan spoke up, but when he did, it sounded guarded.

“Come in.” 

With those words Dan turned around and disappeared into the house, leaving Phil standing in front of it. He didn’t quite know where this was going, but at least Dan wasn’t outright rejecting him again and was willing to talk, so he followed eventually, closing the door behind him. 

The long corridor led to a spacious living room, brightly illuminated by the light falling in through the big windows at the side. There was a grey sofa, which Phil deemed a bit large for one person, especially because he could clearly see a dent in one place where Dan probably always sat, so it wasn’t even that he used the entire space. 

Opposite the sofa was a tv, complete with gaming consoles and a whole lot of games that Phil recognised from his own video games obsession. Phil had known about that of course, since he and Dan had texted quite a lot and even talked during the pub evening. 

Phil startled when Dan suddenly cleared his throat and he realised that he’d been staring at the stack of games instead of paying attention to Dan, who awkwardly hovered near the sofa. 

“Sit,” Dan said but it sounded more like a question. Phil nodded and sat down, careful to leave enough room between them. He didn’t want to make Dan uncomfortable and judging from the stiff way Dan was holding himself, it became clear to Phil that the problem of this whole thing mightn’t be as simple as he’d thought.

“I’m sorry,” Dan blurted out after a moment of silence. His gaze was firmly glued to the hands on his lap. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Phil’s heart sank. It sounded like Dan regretted having kissed Phil, that he wished he’d never even done it in the first place.

“It’s okay,” Phil could hear himself say, trying to keep the sadness out of his voice.

“No, it’s  _ not _ ,” Dan replied hotly, looking at Phil with determination. “What I did  _ wasn’t  _ okay; I shouldn’t have just left you, I-” He exhaled heavily, his gaze sweeping over the room as he seemed to think his next words through. 

Phil was confused. Did that mean that Dan didn’t regret kissing him but how he acted afterwards? 

“What are you saying?” 

Dan looked back at him and began nibbling on his lower lip. “What I’m saying, Phil, is that I’m sorry I ran away after I kissed you. But I- there’s- I  _ can’t _ ,” he said, a painful expression on his face.

“What do you mean, you can’t?” Phil asked, desperate to get to the bottom of this.

Dan sighed and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. “This isn’t a good idea,” he said, instead of answering Phil’s question, and gestured between them. 

“But  _ why _ ?” At this point, Phil’s mind considered the most random reasons - Dan was a spy and his contract with the government prohibited him from starting a relationship with a civilian; he was a werewolf, doomed to rip out the heart’s of his loved ones; he was a time traveller and could therefore not stay so he wouldn’t disrupt the space-time continuum. 

“You like me,” Phil added, more as a question than a statement. He wasn’t sure if Dan had ever really liked him to begin with and all this back and forth with no results only confused him even more.

Dan looked vulnerable for a second and Phil almost reached for his hand, but then he’d looked away, the expression on his face shifting to neutral.

“I can’t go through this all over again.”

The words were said with so little emotion that Phil was almost certain again that the problem this all stemmed from was something much deeper than what was visible on the surface, something very personal to Dan that he couldn’t tell Phil. Not because he didn’t want to or because he was trying to be mean, but because he simply couldn’t bring the words over his lips. They weren’t at that stage of familiarity yet, would probably never be with the way Phil was trying to force him into voicing an explanation that he couldn’t give.

“Okay, that’s fine,” Phil said and smiled when Dan looked at him warily. He chose his next words carefully, not wanting to scare Dan away completely. “I’m not going to force myself onto you. If you want me to go, I will, and if you want me to never contact you again, then that’s okay, too. I like you, Dan, and if nothing else, I want to be friends with you, but I can also accept it if you don’t want that.”

Phil didn’t quite know what he’d expected but it certainly wasn’t the way Dan was looking at him after he’d stopped speaking. The vulnerable expression was back but there was also something else in his gaze, something that Phil hadn’t seen in Dan before.

“I’m not the kind of person that has friends,” Dan said then, a smirk on his face, and all of a sudden they were back to the way they’d been before. This was something Phil knew how to handle.

“Of course you’re not,” Phil replied, amused, and shook his head. “I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”

“You know what else you won’t expect?” Dan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Me beating you at Mario Kart.” Dan grinned at him, the vulnerability from earlier completely gone.

Phil scoffed. “As if.”

Dan jumped up from the sofa to get the controller and Phil couldn’t help but think that if this was all his relationship with Dan would ever be, he’d be completely okay with that. Never again did he want to see Dan as hurt as he’d been during their talk. 

 

*

 

Dan didn’t know why he hadn’t just told Phil to leave when he’d had the chance. He could’ve simply ended this agony, this back and forth between wanting Phil close and wanting to push him away at the same time. 

It just wasn’t fair. Dan cared about Phil, that much had become obvious to him when he hadn’t been able to lie and say to Phil that he didn’t like him, but that was exactly the reason why Dan couldn’t be close to him. He would inevitably end up hurting Phil and that was something Dan wanted to avoid at all costs. 

Even staying friends with Phil was risky. Since talking to him, they’d gone back to the way they’d been before, constantly texting and bantering when they saw each other. Dan tried to limit their encounters to the café at least, but even that didn’t always work. For some reason, Dan just couldn’t say no to Phil, didn’t want to see the disappointment he knew would overtake Phil’s face. It was quite the dilemma, if Dan was being honest. 

He liked Phil and wanted to spend time with him but that inevitably meant that Phil would end up being in his life, probably to the point where it would become very difficult for Dan to hide who he actually was. Not that that was stopping him. In fact, once he became aware of that feeling in his stomach that only appeared whenever he interacted with Phil, he simply ignored it and continued talking to him. He was sure that he was able to control his feelings for Phil and not let anything get too far.

He didn’t quite know why he chose to keep on entertaining Phil at all, since it didn’t make sense after he’d literally pushed Phil away for basically the same reason. Somehow though, now being with Phil was different. He knew how Phil felt about him, knew that the attraction Dan felt towards him was most likely mutual. And while that scared him - not because he didn’t know how to deal with it but because Phil was human and Dan knew it was going to end badly - it didn’t make him want to give Phil up. 

Like all things that Dan spent more than five minutes thinking about, this issue sent him into another crisis. He felt so torn between wanting to be with Phil and doing the rational thing, which he usually preferred, that he spend a good amount of time lounging on his sofa when he was actually supposed to be writing. 

Inevitably, it was Louise who knocked some sense into him and made him realise that things weren’t as black and white as he’d thought. 

“You realise that you’re wasting away this thing you’re calling existence, right?” she said as she raided his fridge, stealing one of his chocolate puddings and a bottle of coke. 

“I am?” Dan asked, confused, and looked up from the notepad he’d been staring at for the last few minutes, trying to come up with ideas for his novel.

“Yes,” Louise simply concluded, settling down opposite Dan and opening the pudding. She didn’t waste a single second eating it.

When she didn’t say anything, Dan sighed and closed the notebook. He already knew that this was going to go on longer than he would like. “Care to elaborate?”

“What do you usually do on a normal day?” she asked instead of answering his question.

“I get up, I procrastinate, try to write, procrastinate a bit more and fill the gaps inbetween with eating.”

“Right.” Louise lifted an eyebrow.

“What?” Dan asked defensively, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning back in his chair. “You probably spend all day painting your nails and reading romance novels.”

“Low blow, Howell, and also, not true,” she replied. “The point is that the most exciting thing you ever do is going outside to Phil’s café.”

“It’s not Phil’s café,” Dan said, just because he felt it necessary to point out, “and so what? I don’t like people.”

Now it was Louise’s turn to sigh and boy, was she good at sighing dramatically and immediately making Dan feel like he’d missed the whole point of what she was trying to get across. Which, to be fair, was probably the case. 

“You do like Phil though,” she pointed out.

“Yes,” Dan replied without hesitation and internally berated himself upon Louise’s satisfied smirk. “So?”

“Dan.” Judging from her tone of voice, he  _ was  _ missing the point she was trying to make. Not that that helped; it would’ve been easier if she straight out said what she meant.

“ _ What _ ?”

“You’re immortal but that doesn’t mean that time doesn’t tick away for you. And that whole immortality thing certainly doesn’t apply to everyone,” she said slowly, probably to make sure that he was aware of every single word. “Not everyone will still be here in a hundred years.”

Now that was something that Dan understood since he’d thought about that exact thing for the last few weeks.

“I know,” he sighed and looked away, trying not to let her see how much her words affected him.

“You will be though. You will still be here, doing the same old boring things you always do, sitting around all day and playing video games.”

Dan glared at her. She made it sound like he was wasting away his existence, when in reality he was simply doing things he enjoyed. 

“And you won’t have affected a single human or vampire life.”

Dan wanted to protest - his novels could certainly affect someone’s life to some degree - but she immediately shushed him. “I mean properly.  _ Personally _ , Dan.”

“Oh,” Dan simply said in response, in lack of better words. All of a sudden he got what Louise was trying to get at. 

All the while he’d only been thinking of the negative effects his presence would have on Phil’s life when there were probably twice as much positive things to focus on. Yes, Phil would inevitably die and before that he would probably end up hurt in some way or another when he’d learn that Dan didn’t age, or when Dan would break things off with him instead. But for now, for the time they spent together at the moment, they could be happy. They could go with the flow, they could simply _enjoy_ _life_. Dan had almost forgotten what that was like with all that time he spent by himself.

That night, he dreamt about him and Phil. Phil was lying in a bed and he was old, his hair gone grey and wrinkles on his face where there weren’t at this point in time, and he was looking at Dan with tears in his eyes. Dan could all too clearly hear his voice, saying “thank you for having made my life the most enjoyable by deciding to spend a part of yours with me.”

 

*

 

With this newfound realisation everything changed for Dan. He didn’t hold himself back when he felt the urge to text Phil and he frequented the coffee shop more often than not, mostly during the times Phil worked, just so he could enjoy his presence while working. He’d done the last part before of course - sitting in the café and writing - but it was different now. Before, he’d mostly tried to ignore Phil, to not get him to talk to him, but now he looked up from time to time only to seek Phil’s gaze and smile at him across the room. 

It was very out of character, to say the least, and although it seemed to confuse Phil at first, he quickly adjusted to Dan’s new behaviour and started to take advantage of it. Not in a bad way, of course, and he was certainly trying to not overwhelm Dan, but instead of bringing him a new coffee and leaving straight away, Phil would sit down at his table and they’d talk for a few minutes. It was nice, even though Dan wasn’t used to being in someone else’s company so often. With Phil however, it didn’t feel like a burden, like it did with most people, he didn’t drain Dan’s energy at all.

A week and a half after having talked to Louise, Dan stayed at the café until closing time. Usually he went home earlier - watching an episode or two of the current tv show he was obsessed with was obligatory - but today was different. He was in no rush to get back, probably because Phil was the only staff member that was left, meaning that they were alone by the time Phil had to lock up the café. 

“Did you get a lot done today?” Phil asked as they started walking in the direction of both their homes.

“Yeah,” Dan lied. In reality, he’d spend too much time staring at Phil and not enough focusing on his work. That had happened a lot recently. He should probably stop that (or not, because he liked looking at Phil and writing was a pain in the ass - and not the good kind).

“I’m glad you did,” Phil replied and smiled, genuinely. It made Dan immediately feel guilty.  _ Great _ .

Instead of replying, Dan bumped their shoulders together. They walked side by side in silence for a while but it wasn’t uncomfortable by the slightest. 

“Do you sometimes feel like your life doesn’t have a purpose?” Dan asked suddenly, just as the thought had crossed his mind. He couldn’t help but think back to the dream he’d had about Phil and the way he’d looked so  _ happy  _ just to have been with Dan. Was that something that possible for them, something they could actually have?

Phil’s gaze flitted to him shortly and then away to fixate on the visible stars in the sky. “Not really,” he said slowly, like he was voicing his opinion right as he was forming it. “I think every person has a purpose in life. It might not be something world-changing like inventing the cure for cancer, but ultimately everyone makes someone else happy or helps them in a difficult situation. It’s the little things that count, not necessarily the big gestures.” 

“Is that something you think about a lot?” Phil asked eventually when Dan didn’t answer. Thoughts rushed through his head that he didn’t quite know how to voice.

“Sometimes,” Dan replied and shrugged. In actuality,  _ sometimes  _ was at least twice a day.

“You don’t need to, y’know.”

“I don’t need to do what?” Dan asked, confused. He looked at Phil but he was avoiding Dan’s gaze. He didn’t reply straight away, but when he did, he finally locked eyes with Dan again.

“You don’t need to worry about not having an impact on people,” he said softly and stopped short, forcing Dan to stand still as well. “Even if you weren’t an author and there wasn’t anyone to read your works, you’d still have had an impact on, um, on me.”

With those words Phil looked away again, the tips of his ears going red. Even with the distance between them Dan could hear his heart beating faster. Usually, he blocked out all of those trivial noises but now that he was so focused on Phil, he couldn’t help but pick up on them. 

“Yeah?” Dan heard himself ask, his voice having gone low. He was kind of slipping into predator mode but to be honest, that one wasn’t much different from the seducer one.

Phil just nodded and before Dan knew what he was doing, he’d stepped forward and closed the space between them. Phil looked at him then and Dan could see longing in his eyes and something else, something softer and caring, something that Dan wasn’t sure he could put into words even if he’d known what exactly it was. 

He didn’t need words for this though, didn’t need to say what he knew Phil was thinking as well, so he simply leant forwards and pressed his lips to Phil’s. It was different to the first time they’d done this. Dan knew exactly what he wanted now and he wasn’t in a rush, he wanted to savour this moment. 

Illuminated by the streetlamp to their immediate left, Phil’s hand found its way to Dan’s hip just as Dan buried his in Phil’s hair. It didn’t take long for Phil to tease open Dan’s mouth and what could’ve been a minute later, Dan was glad that he didn’t actually need to breathe, so he wouldn’t have to stop kissing Phil except for when Phil needed to come up for air. 

They were pressed together from head to toe in a way that Dan probably would’ve found suffocating not too long ago, but couldn’t get enough of now. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Phil actually wanted this too,  _ wanted Dan _ of all people, so he savoured every damn minute of being close to Phil like this. 

“Well, well, well, who do we have here?” a low voice that was definitely not coming from either of them suddenly asked.

Dan let go of Phil like he’d been burned, spinning around to see David, Guy No. 2 and Guy No. 3 - he really needed to come up with better names for them - standing before them, trapping them in with only the entrance of an alley behind them as an escape route.

Well, Dan should’ve known, really. He should’ve known they wouldn’t actually leave him alone. When did vampire hunters ever do that? The answer was never. Which Dan should’ve  _ known _ . Of course, they would’ve looked into what Dan had said and had probably found loopholes or that he’d been uttering completely made up things. 

Oh shit, he was going to die. He didn’t want to die. And he especially didn’t want Phil seeing him die.

Shit,  _ Phil _ . He still didn’t know who Dan really was. Dan looked over to him and he could see confusion mixed with terror in his eyes. His lips were red from their extensive kissing.

“Dan?” he asked, blindly reaching for Dan’s hand. Dan let their fingers intertwine, his cold hand resting in Phil’s warm one.

The hunters looked down at their hands and David dared to smirk. Dan immediately knew that they’d properly prepared themselves this time and that they wouldn’t give up. No, they were after blood, and specifically Dan’s. He probably shouldn’t have provoked them so much last time.

Fuck, Dan couldn’t possibly fight three hunters at once. He was terribly out of shape since he hadn’t actually had to deal with any for the last fifty years or so. And he didn’t even want to think about what they would do to Phil once they were finished with him.

He squeezed Phil’s hand, willing him to look at him, which he did after a beat. Dan tried to convey in his gaze how much he was sorry because this couldn’t end well.

“Run,” he whispered, knowing only Phil would hear him, and then tugged at Phil’s hand as he turned around and broke into a sprint. Phil was at his side, already panting, probably from shock and lack of exercise (and maybe a bit out of breath from kissing). Dan couldn’t blame him. If he’d kept in shape, he would’ve been able to carry Phil on his back while running.

Unfortunately though, Dan had never been a fan of exercise and since he physically couldn’t gain weight, he’d never bothered, instead preferring to relax into the cushions of his couch as much as he could, despite Louise’s desperate efforts of getting him to socialise. He could still run pretty fast, though, and since he didn’t actually need to breathe, he was able to run without stopping. Phil, however, was a completely different story and as Dan looked at him from the side, he could see that his face was red and he was out of breath, desperately trying to keep up and simultaneously trying to suck enough air into his lungs. He tripped a few times but Dan had a death grip on his hand, not letting him fall.

He knew they needed to find somewhere to hide; they couldn’t run forever and both of their homes were too far away still, so when he saw a warehouse that he knew to be abandoned, he steered Phil and him into that direction. He almost ripped the steel door off its hinges as he opened it and basically shoved Phil inside so that he wouldn’t be in immediate reach of the hunters. He slammed the door shut behind them and bent the door handle out of shape so that it wouldn’t be as easy to follow them inside.

Phil was already climbing up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and Dan quickly followed him. Just as they had reached the first floor he could hear their persecutors trying to get inside. He shoved Phil into the first room he could find, locking the door behind them.

When he turned around, he realised that they were in some kind of storage room. Shelves were lining the walls with carton boxes on them and there was only one tiny window almost at the top of the wall opposite Dan, that didn’t even seem to have any opening mechanism.

Phil was bent over, his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He looked up at Dan then and his brows furrowed in confusion.

“How are y-“ He coughed and then sucked in a big breath. “How are you not out of breath?” he asked.

“Um,” Dan said, “I exercise regularly,” he lied.

He should probably tell Phil about himself. Even if they made it out of this alive, these hunters wouldn’t give up. And they would get more hunters to join them.

“You do?” Phil asked skeptically and straightened up. They’d joked about how they both didn’t like exercise, but Dan couldn’t concentrate on that now.

“Yeah.” Dan tried to listen for any signs that the hunters had made it inside but he couldn’t hear anything other than Phil’s harsh breathing and his fast heartbeat.

“Okay,” Phil said and it sounded like Dan’s conflicting views on exercise bothered him but Dan knew that that wasn’t what was occupying his mind. He was trying to come up with a rational explanation as to why these three random guys had run after them.

“They’re probably gone by now, don’t you think?” Phil said, eyeing the door as if he was going to open it any second and Dan automatically moved between him and the exit.

“Why would you think that?”

“I mean,” Phil replied, looking confused, “they were clearly homophobic and while I think they really wanted to let out their anger on us, they don’t seem to have followed us inside.”

Dan couldn’t help but laugh at that. Of course that’s what it seemed like to Phil. Just three homophobic dudes wanting to beat the shit out of them. Not that that was any better. He wished it was true, though, then they might have had a chance at fighting them.

“What?” Phil asked, his voice betraying how irritated he was. Dan couldn’t blame him. He’d feel the same in his position.

“They’re not-,” Dan started, trying to think of a sensible way to tell Phil that he’d been wanting to date a vampire this entire time. He shook his head. “Phil, I’m going to tell you something and I need you to not freak out, okay?”

“Dan?” Phil said and sounded confused and scared and Dan hated himself a whole lot for making Phil go through this. He’d never wanted it to come to this. This was the exact reason why he’d pushed Phil away in the first place.

“Look, there’s something I haven’t told you,” Dan said, stepping closer to Phil.

“Oh God.” Phil’s voice wavered and he closed the remaining space between them, grasping Dan’s hand. “That illness you talked about... you’re not going to die, are you?” he asked, squeezing his hand tightly. He looked so afraid that Dan smiled at him reassuringly.

“No, no, no,” the words rushed out of his mouth and Phil instantly relaxed.

“I mean, technically I’m already dead,” Dan said and immediately tensed, because,  _ shit _ , he hadn’t meant to say that.

Phil gripped his hand even tighter and stared at Dan as if he’d gone mad. Considering what he’d just said, Dan had to admit that it certainly seemed that way.

“Phil,” he said softly, smiling at him. “Those guys that chased us weren’t following us because they’re homophobic. I mean, that might’ve also been a factor but that wasn’t the main reason.”

“I’m confused.”

“They’re hunters,” Dan said slowly, willing Phil to understand.

“Hunters?” Phil looked like he was going to add something else but kept silent.

“Vampire hunters, to be specific,” Dan said and could see how Phil eyed him warily, still not understanding where this was going.

“I’m a vampire, Phil.”

“What are you on about?” Phil said, forcing out a laugh that didn’t sound amused at all. “Don’t make fun of me, Dan.”

“I’m not.” Dan sighed, unconsciously shaking his head. Phil’s hand had gone limp in his and he knew that if he hadn’t still been holding on to it, he would’ve let it fall to his side.

“Look, you know how I told you that I had this weird illness making my skin feel cold all the time?”

Phil nodded and he pulled his hand away from Dan’s. Dan tried to ignore the disappointment rising up inside him.

“I don’t have blood circulation, that’s why my skin is cold,” Dan explained. “I don’t have a heartbeat.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?” Dan asked confused. This was probably the last reaction he had expected from Phil.

“No, you’re not a vampire,” Phil insisted. “My boyfriend is  _ not _ a vampire.”

If Dan had had a heart, it probably would’ve skipped a beat at Phil’s words.

“You want me to be your boyfriend?” he asked incredulously.

“Not if you’re saying all this weird stuff and creeping me out,” Phil replied, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“But it’s true!” Dan exclaimed, throwing his hands up. He’d never thought it’d be this difficult to make Phil believe he was actually a vampire. All this time he’d been afraid of Phil’s reaction after telling him and he never even considered that Phil wouldn’t believe him.

At this point Phil actually started to look more than pissed off. Dan had never seen him truly angry and he didn’t want to, if he was honest.

“Dan,” he started in a warning voice, when suddenly a smell hit Dan so hard that he whipped his head around, looking towards the door.

“Wait,” he said. Phil mumbled something inaudible under his breath but kept quiet apart from that.  

Dan walked towards the door, the smell immediately getting stronger. It smelt like fire, like something was burning and a very bad feeling settled in Dan’s stomach as he touched the door, which was warmer under his hand than it had been minutes before.

He threw a quick glance back to Phil, who still looked incredibly pissed off, and slowly pressed down the door handle, opening the door a tiny amount. Immediately smoke started to rush in through the gap and Dan could see yellow and red flames licking up the staircase. He pushed the door closed, leaning against it with his back.

“Phil,” he said and Phil let his hands drop to his side, stumbling backwards. His angry demeanour had changed into a frightened one.

“They’ve set fire to the warehouse.”

“Oh God,” Phil said, all colour leaving his face. “We’re going to die.” His voice was nothing more than a whisper but it hit Dan with more force than he’d expected.

_ No _ . Phil couldn’t die. He wasn’t going to die under Dan’s watch, especially not because of Dan’s stupid mistakes. He’d let them into a room without another exit, he was at fault that there was no escape route other than through the fire.

Dan quickly scanned the room and located a fire blanket next to a shelf. He hastily pulled it out of its container, shaking it. Good, it was a big one.

He turned back around, walking towards Phil and stopping in front of him.

“Phil, do you trust me?” He asked, not knowing what the answer would be.

Phil stared at him, his eyes full of fear, and he nodded. “Of course I do,” he said softly as if they hadn’t argued about Dan being a vampire just minutes before.

“Okay, I’m going to wrap this around you,” Dan explained, shaking the fire blanket, “and I need you to hold your breath, okay? And then we’re going to get out of here.”

Phil nodded but just as Dan put the blanket around him, he grabbed his wrist. “What about you?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Dan answered hoarsely, wrapping the blanket completely around Phil. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he walked out into that fire. While he was immortal in the sense that he never aged and always stayed the same, there were still a few sure way methods of killing a vampire. Fire being on of them.

“Hold your breath,” Dan instructed, then hooked one arm under Phil’s knees, the other around his back and hoisted him up into his arms. He sprinted towards the door, slowly pulling it open and upon seeing that the fire hadn’t reached their door yet he exited the room, running in the opposite direction they had come from.

There was another set of stairs leading downstairs at the end of the corridor but the fire had already climbed its way up. Dan had no choice. Either he braved the fire or Phil was going to die.

As soon as Dan set foot on the first step, his clothes caught fire but he fought his way down and then along another corridor that just didn’t seem to end. He could feel his skin trying to heal the burns but the relentless fire was destroying Dan’s cells faster than his body could reproduce them. Pain laced through his his every fiber and he bit down on his lip hard in order not to scream. 

Finally, he had reached the door, only to find it locked. With all the strength he had left, Dan pressed his back against the door, causing it to fall onto the concrete with a loud bang.

He was hardly holding on to Phil anymore at this point, his body not wanting to cooperate, but he managed to stumble to a patch of grass not too far away.

He immediately ripped the fire blanket off of Phil, who sucked in a surprised breath. He was completely unharmed apart from sweating so much that he was completely wet, but shook so much that he couldn’t grip the blanket to get if off his feet.

Dan couldn’t keep himself upright anymore and let himself fall onto the grass. His entire body hurt. He’d never been in so much pain. He couldn’t even manage to keep his eyes open, so he scrunched them shut, hoping that would help but instead he felt his right hand go numb.

He was  _ dying _ .

For the second time, but still, it wasn’t pleasant. Not that death ever was but Dan had hoped he wouldn’t feel as much the second time around.

“Dan,” he heard Phil’s breathy voice next to him. He sounded close to tears and as Dan opened his eyes he saw tears rolling down Phil’s cheeks. He wanted to reach out and assure him that it was fine, that everything was going to be  _ fine _ , but he couldn’t move.

“Dan,” Phil sobbed and he reached out, stilling his hand at the last second. “Oh  _ God _ .”

“Phil,” Dan managed to get out. He had difficulty keeping his eyes open. “I need you... to call Louise.” The words didn’t come over his lips easily, he had to force them out.

“Okay, okay.” Phil frantically patted his pockets for his phone even though he always put it into the front left one. His hands were shaking so badly, he almost dropped the phone but then it was pressed to his ear and he was frantically speaking into it and Dan let his eyes fall shut.

He could hear Phil’s urgent voice as he was tripping over his words. “Louise, I need you to- Dan is-”

Phil was full on sobbing now as more and more words tumbled out of his mouth. Hurt was audible in his voice and Dan hated himself for having put it there.

“He’s- yeah, we’re behind the warehouse- Louise, he, his  _ skin _ ,” Phil whispered the last word and although Dan couldn’t see what he looked like, he guessed that it couldn’t be a very pleasant sight. Considering he’d literally walked through fire, his skin was probably completely gone in some places and burned black in others. 

He tried not to listen to Phil talking to Louise. He didn’t want to know what death looked like and he couldn’t bear hearing Phil’s sobs, so he concentrating on his limbs, slowly losing feeling in his left hand. 

He didn’t know how long it had been when he heard Phil saying his name again but it sounded so full of hurt and fear and Dan wanted it to stop. It hurt to hear Phil like that. Phil wasn’t supposed to be scared, he was supposed to be happy and bubbly and smiling.

“Don’t leave me,” Phil sobbed and Dan forced his eyes open again. Phil was leaning over him, one hand over his mouth, the other reaching out as if to touch Dan. Tears were falling out of his eyes non-stop.

“I don’t care if you’re a vampire,” he whispered, “but  _ please  _ don’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry, Phil,” Dan said because there was nothing else to say that would make this better.

“There must be a way,” Phil started, brushing his fringe out of his eyes with shaking hands. “You’re-“ He seemed to frantically think of something that would save Dan.

“My blood!” he suddenly exclaimed, his eyes going big. “Drink my blood!”

“Phil, no.” Dan managed to get out and if he had been able to move, he would’ve gotten as far away from Phil as possible.

“Blood would heal you,” Phil said as if he’d become a vampire expert in the last few minutes.

“Yes,” Dan replied, not thinking straight.

“Then drink my blood!” Phil cried, sticking his arm in Dan’s face and if Dan hadn’t been on the verge of death, he might’ve laughed.

“No!” he gritted out, putting as much authority into his voice as possible but Phil didn’t move his arm.

“I would kill you,” he then added because Phil seemed intent on making Dan drink his blood and Dan couldn’t have that. “I wouldn’t be able to stop.”

“I don’t care,” Phil said, too stubborn for his own good.

“Phil,” Dan whispered. He just wanted to close his eyes again and not argue with Phil over this. He wouldn’t drink Phil’s blood, he couldn’t. He  _ couldn’t lose Phil _ , not after he’d only just realised how important Phil was to him. He’d rather die.

“No, Dan,” Phil said and there were still tears in his eyes. “You’re not going to die because of me.”

Dan wanted to cry. That was the exact reason they were in this position in the first place, because he couldn’t let Phil die because of him. He should’ve known that Phil would be the same.

“There are rules,” Dan protested and at this point he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. “I can’t just do that,” he mumbled, his eyes slipping closed again.

“I don’t care!” Phil almost screamed, desperation oozing out of his voice. “Just do it!”

“No.” Dan wasn’t going to give in. He’d never give in.

Suddenly the distinct smell of metal penetrated his senses and his eyes snapped open on their own accord, searching out the source. His fangs snapped out and he opened his mouth a tiny bit, desperate for the blood that he could smell so clearly. His gaze fell on Phil and wandered down to his arm, where a red substance was running over his pale skin and his hand with which he tried to stop the blood from dropping onto the grass.

“Phil,” Dan whispered as he realised what he had done.

No, this couldn’t be happening. No, no, no, his mind repeated relentlessly.  _ No. _

And then he tasted metal as it flowed over his tongue and his hands shot up, grabbing the arm that was held over his mouth, and he sucked, his mind going blank.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially, there was supposed to be more happening in this chapter but I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer, and this part turned out way longer than planned anyway :D 
> 
> also, there's been a lot going on in my life, so that's why this is incredibly late (let's be real, I will never have a regular uploading schedule again)
> 
>  **edit:** there are still a lot of things happening (I'm writing a fic for the pbb and there are lots of other fics I'm working on), hence why an update is going to take even longer than usual. there will be a new chapter eventually and will finish this story, but there are more important things atm. sorry

The first time Phil woke up, he felt perfectly fine. So fine in fact that he promptly fell back asleep after he’d turned around to get more comfortable. The second time around wasn’t much different, only that he felt considerably more awake. 

As he laid there, eyes trained on the ceiling of the four-poster bed, memories of last night came flooding back. The way Dan had looked, his skin black in some places and gone in others to show what laid underneath, would be forever etched into Phil’s brain. Phil would’ve never been able to just  _ leave  _ him like that, to accept the fact that Dan was dying for good. At that point Phil hadn’t cared about anything other than saving him. Even if that meant sacrificing himself. 

He didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if Louise hadn’t turned up at the right moment. He couldn’t even properly remember that part, except for the pain that had pulled him in and out of consciousness. There’d been minutes when he’d felt like he hadn’t even been in his own body anymore and others where every part of his body had hurt like fire had been burning in his veins. 

It had been worth it though. After Louise had made sure to give him blood infusions and probably some of her blood – he really couldn’t remember that well – Phil had been able to look over at Dan, whose body had begun the process of healing itself. They’d already been in the van at that point, though Phil could neither remember getting on or off it. The only thing he was able to distinctly recall was the way the mansion had towered over them intimidatingly right before he’d been led inside and down several hallways to a spacious room equipped with medical supplies. Despite his protests of wanting to stay with Dan, he’d been pushed onto the bed and connected to the machines. Louise had explained to him in a calm voice that Dan needed time to recover same as did Phil. 

Phil didn’t really remember much after that, but he was pretty sure that he fell asleep not soon after Louise had talked to him. 

Despite most of the previous night being a blur in his mind, he knew that the heaviness in his stomach was only a part of the fear he’d felt then. Losing Dan right after they’d finally managed to realise their feelings and also acting on them was not something he’d ever imagined happening. It’d shaken him to the core. 

An image of Dan’s fangs breaking out at the smell of Phil’s blood appeared before his mind and Phil shuddered. The danger they’d been in beforehand had forced him to simply accept the fact that Dan was a vampire, even if Phil hadn’t really believed him. He knew now that Dan had been telling the truth and the more he thought about it, the more indications he found in past encounters with Dan. 

The only thing that confused Phil a bit, however, was that vampires were apparently able to ingest normal food and drink, something that basically every TV show and movie depicted differently. It made Phil wonder if he’d simply been heavily drugged and had therefore imagined everything that’d happened the night before. 

Slowly, Phil lifted his arm. There was a puncture wound where the IV had been – someone must’ve pulled it out during the night – but further down, right at the underside of his wrist, were two dark dots. It hurt when Phil moved his hand, so Dan’s fangs must’ve went pretty deep. At least that meant that Phil hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing. 

After another while of simply lying in bed, Phil finally got up. He didn’t feel unsteady on his feet at all and he asked himself if that was down to having been given vampire blood. There wasn’t any other logical explanation after having lost so much blood that he should’ve died. 

Did that mean that he was bound to whomever had given him their blood? Wasn’t it like that in almost every vampire show? If it turned out to be that way, what would that mean for Dan and him?

Phil shook his head, trying to get those thoughts out of his mind. He didn’t want to think about what-if’s, the only thing he wanted right now was to see Dan. He needed to know that Dan was okay. After all, Dan could still be in a critical condition, fighting for his life. 

As Phil stepped out of the room and into the corridor, he realised that he had no idea where he even was or how he was supposed to find anyone. From his hazy memory, he could remember that he’d been led through many corridors until arriving here, so it would take him ages to check every room in search of Dan. 

In the end, he decided to simply walk around and see if he met someone who could tell him where to go. Or what was going on, at the very least. He needed to know how Dan was doing.

The mansion turned out to be pretty big as Phil wandered through the corridors and it took him a while until he actually ran into someone. He was just about to head down the big staircase at the end of a corridor when someone stepped out of a room to his right. It was a guy who looked to be about Phil’s age, with curly brown hair that bounced a bit as he turned around.

“Oh,” he said as his gaze landed on Phil. Then a smile overtook his face and he walked towards Phil, offering him his hand. 

“Hi, I’m PJ,” he said, as Phil tentatively shook his hand. He had no idea who the guy was but he didn’t want to be rude. There was a high possibility that PJ was a vampire, too.

“Um, hey, I’m Phil.”

“I know, I was with Louise when she picked you up,” PJ told him, a glint in his eye as he grinned at Phil. “I assume you’re looking for Dan?”

“Yeah,” Phil mumbled, blushing. Was he that obvious?

“No offense but he still needs to rest and I feel like you being near him would keep him from doing that,” PJ said matter-of-factly, and Phil couldn’t help but immediately frown. He could understand where PJ was coming from, after all, Dan had a propensity for being dramatic, but that didn’t stop Phil from wanting to see him regardless. 

“Oh,” he said, but nodded. 

“I’m sorry, you must be starving,” PJ said then, as if he’d just realised that Phil was human and needed food to survive. “Let’s have dinner.”

With those words he strode off down the staircase. After a second, Phil hurried after him, asking himself what his life had become as he passed a massive painting depicting a historical battle, similar to one he’d seen in London’s National Gallery years ago.

“You know, it’s quite nice that Dan has finally found someone he cares about,” PJ said conversationally as they walked along another corridor that kind of looked exactly like the last one. It didn’t surprise Phil that he hadn’t found Dan just by wandering around aimlessly. He probably wouldn’t have even been able to find the front door.

“Oh?” Phil didn’t know exactly what PJ meant by that since Dan seemed to be close to Louise, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have anyone else apart from Phil. 

“After John died, he shut himself away emotionally – not that he’d agree, of course, but we could all see how hard it was for him to cope. I basically forced him to visit regularly but I think seeing me and Sophie kind of made it worse for him,” PJ said. Apparently, he had no qualms whatsoever talking about topics that Dan hadn’t even touched on with Phil. It made Phil want to stop PJ from telling him this but at the same time he knew deep down that this was something Dan would never tell Phil on his own initiative. At least not for a very long time still.

Phil didn’t know which question to ask first – who John and Sophie were, when this had taken place, what all of that  _ meant _ – but he decided to go with the backstory first. “Who was John? And what happened to him?” he asked tentatively.

“John was Dan’s boyfriend who went missing in the war,” PJ explained, and for the fraction of a second Phil thought he saw something akin to sadness on his features but then he continued, without a trace of melancholy in his voice, “At first we thought that he might come back but after a few years even Dan had to accept the truth.”

That probably explained a lot, Phil thought. After having lost someone, specifically a human, it was obvious and understandable that Dan would be cautious of having any kind of relationship with a human again. Phil really couldn’t blame Dan for how he’d reacted – trying to keep Phil away as much as possible – after hearing about John, despite not knowing in detail how their relationship had been or how the whole thing had panned out.

“What war?” he asked quickly, before PJ could continue.

“Oh, the first one,” he answered, gesticulating with his hand as if he’d seen countless wars and wasn’t bothered by them anymore. Phil didn’t know how old PJ was, so he actually could’ve witnessed quite a few. That thought suddenly made Phil feel scared and insignificant next to someone who’d seen so much more of the world than he ever would.

“The first one?” Phil echoed. Surely he didn’t mean the first war ever, did he? Phil couldn’t picture Dan having been around that long and then deciding he wanted to be with Phil after having met thousands of people during his life.

“The first World War,” PJ said, oblivious to the thoughts and questions currently running through Phil’s head at breakneck speed. At least now he knew that PJ was, in fact, a vampire. “Terrible times. I don’t know why John didn’t opt for going with Dan and instead chose to fight at the front. Maybe he knew deep down that they weren’t meant to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“I suppose Dan hasn’t told you much about vampire lore yet?” PJ asked, lifting an eyebrow. They rounded a corner and stepped into another long corridor.

Phil shook his head. “No.”

PJ sighed. “Didn’t think he would’ve, even if you’d had more time together. Anyway, you know what a soulmate is, right?”

“I think so,” Phil said but it sounded more like a question than a statement. He wasn’t sure what PJ was actually talking about.

“Don’t ask me how it works and why this is even a thing, because I have no idea, but basically every vampire has a soulmate. Most of the time they’re soulmates with a human. It’s very rare that their soulmate is a vampire too, and before you ask, I don’t know why that is either. The only thing I know is that the human’s blood will seem more appealing to the vampire than other humans’ blood,” PJ explained while gesticulating wildly. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you ask me, because that only increases the chance of the human accidentally being killed by their vampire soulmate, but what do I know? I don’t make the rules.”

“Dan and John weren’t, um, like that?” Phil asked cautiously. Despite it being pretty much a fact that John wasn’t alive anymore, Phil felt something akin to jealousy weighing him down.

“No. At least not as far as I’m aware.” 

Phil nodded, more for himself than PJ. Then another thought occurred to him. “Are you…” he trailed off, not quite knowing how to phrase his question without being blunt. He didn’t want to be rude, after all, he didn’t even know PJ. 

“It’s alright, you can ask whatever you want,” PJ said with a smirk as if he’d read Phil’s mind. In reality, he’d probably only picked up on Phil’s increasing heartbeat. Which didn’t make the whole thing much better, to be honest, it made it even scarier. 

“Do you have a soulmate?” He asked quietly. He really hoped he hadn’t upset PJ.

“I do,” PJ said after a moment, and Phil released the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. “She turned me, actually.”

Phil was quiet for a moment as he thought about what PJ’s words were implying. Being a vampire’s soulmate practically meant that you had to be turned, didn’t it? After all, this soulmate business sounded pretty serious. It made Phil think about what this meant for his and Dan’s relationship. He most probably wasn’t his soulmate, was he? Surely Dan would’ve said something if that was the case, right? 

Dan hadn’t had the time though, after Phil had learnt about him being a vampire and, knowing Dan, even if he’d had a few more minutes, he probably wouldn’t have sprung the news on Phil like that. Was that the reason for Dan’s hesitation and refusal to even be near Phil for the most part of their time together? Had Dan only agreed to be with him because he involuntarily felt drawn to Phil, because he didn’t have any other choice? And what if Phil wasn’t Dan’s soulmate? Would their relationship even work out? Surely, if Phil was just like any other human to Dan, he wouldn’t turn him so he wouldn’t have to get into an awkward situation should his soulmate suddenly appear.

That was another thing entirely – being  _ turned _ . Until now, Phil hadn’t had time to spare to think about giving up being alive, and obviously this hadn’t come up in the past either, since he wouldn’t have even dreamt of vampires existing. But what if Dan wanted to turn Phil? Would Phil even consider that? What if he was turned by Dan and they realised they didn’t get on? Spending eternity with someone you didn’t like a hundred percent sounded like a recipe for disaster.

God, Phil’s head was starting to hurt from all this new information that was causing more and more questions to appear. It had probably been a while until PJ had last spoken but when Phil looked at him, he didn’t seem to be annoyed or impatiently waiting for Phil to answer. 

“Does it hurt?” Phil asked quietly, instead of voicing any other of his seemingly infinite questions. After all, PJ wasn’t Dan and while he certainly seemed to know him quite well, Phil wanted to talk to Dan first before confiding in his friends. 

“I’m not gonna lie,” PJ said, turning to look at Phil. “It hurts a lot. Actually, death would probably be more pleasant, now that I think about it. But I don’t regret it. I made the right decision.” 

The last few words were spoken with such certainty and confidence that Phil didn’t doubt PJ’s sincerity one bit. He had to be very happy with his partner and existence as a vampire.

“I’m glad.” 

PJ snorted and shot him a grin. “Sure you are.” 

Well, at least now Phil knew why Dan was friends with PJ. They were definitely similar. 

“How about some food?” PJ suddenly asked and stopped short. Only now Phil noticed that they were in a different corridor and in front of a large wooden door. Before he’d even said anything, PJ already opened it, leading him into a surprisingly normal-sized room with a table in the middle. Upon seeing the food upon it – there was so much, Phil would never be able to eat all of it even if he had a week’s time – his stomach rumbled rather loudly, making PJ laugh. 

“Yeah, I think I’d like that,” he mumbled, blushing, and followed PJ to the table.

 

*

 

Dan woke with a start. 

“ _ Phil _ .”

He immediately sat up, his vision fuzzy from the sudden movement. He tried to stop his head from spinning and after a few seconds of keeping completely still, he was able to see properly again. He realised that he was in one of the many rooms of PJ’s and Sophie’s house. Well, it was more like a  _ mansion  _ if Dan was being completely honest. He’d been here a few times and still got lost almost every time he visited. 

The question was however, why was he at PJ’s if Phil had called Louise? Had she been with PJ at that point? And why wasn’t he in a room with Phil? Did that mean–  _ No _ . Dan wasn’t going to take that possibility into consideration. Phil wasn’t- he  _ couldn’t _ be. Dan would never able to forgive himself if that were the case. 

God, Dan needed to get out of bed and see for himself that Phil was perfectly  _ fine _ .

He slipped out from under the duvet, only to have his arm janked back as he stood up, causing him to almost fall back onto the covers. Confused, he looked at his arm, only to realise that there was a needle stuck in it. He traced the attached tube with his eyes and saw that it ended in a bag filled with blood. Huh. 

Dan must’ve been pretty much hanging on the last thread if PJ and Louise had deemed it necessary for him to continuously have blood – presumably a mix of human and vampire blood – pumped into him in order for his body to heal. That he still felt a bit woozy now was a good indicator for that, too. 

Dan didn’t want to think about what that meant in regards to Phil. Either he hadn’t had the chance to drink much of Phil’s blood and had therefore still needed a lot more, or the amount of Phil’s entire blood hadn’t sufficed. Even picturing that last possibility made Dan feel sick to his stomach.

He shook his head to get rid of all those worst case scenario thoughts and carelessly ripped the needle out of his arm, dropping it onto the bed and walking over to the other side of the bed where the machines stood. He made sure to turn them all off so as not to have all of the blood drip onto the bed, and made his way to the door. 

When he stepped into the corridor, he had no idea where he was at first. It took a while to find his bearings but as soon as he knew where he was, he started heading towards the main part of the mansion, where PJ and Sophie spend most of their time. 

Now and again a wave of dizziness hit him and he had to stop for a few seconds and lean against a wall before he could continue. He was weaker than he thought he would be. But then again, he’d been convinced he would die, so this was bearable. If it wasn’t for the uncertainty about Phil that kept nagging at him relentlessly, that was. It made him want to break into a run – despite hating exercise – but he knew he’d collapse after a few yards, so he just kept walking slowly but determinedly. 

Just as he’d stepped into the corridor with PJ’s and Sophie’s rooms, he could begin to hear voices. His hearing was probably not working as well as it usually did either if he hadn’t picked up on them sooner. He could make out that the talking was coming from the dining room that PJ and Sophie only used for private purposes since it wasn’t big enough to host a dinner party in – not that they had those often. 

Dan pushed open the door without bothering to knock, and immediately the talking ceased. Dan’s gaze first fell on Louise and PJ sitting on one side of the table in the middle of the room and then slid over to Sophie and Phil on the other side.  _ Phil _ . 

He was sitting right there at the table and he was  _ alive  _ and  _ well _ .

Before Dan could even move, Phil had got up and ran towards him. In the next moment, he had an armful of Phil, who clung onto him, his arms around Dan’s neck, holding on tightly. 

“God,  _ Dan _ ,” Phil murmured, his voice breaking on his name. He drew back to properly look at Dan and his hands came up, cupping Dan’s face. “You’re paler than usually. Are you okay? How are you feeling? Maybe you should sit down and have something to eat,” the words started to rush out of Phil’s mouth. He was about to turn around and tug Dan with him, when Dan spoke up.

“Shut up,” he growled, and to his surprise, Phil immediately fell silent, a surprised expression on his face. Dan reached up and took one of Phil’s hands between his. “I told you not to offer your blood to me! You could’ve  _ died _ !” he exclaimed, his words not matching the gentle way with which he was holding Phil’s hand. 

“Well, you would’ve died if I hadn’t!” Phil said determinedly with a frown. Phil talking back to him like that wasn’t what Dan had expected but he certainly wasn’t surprised. This was Phil after all. 

“That would’ve been better than the high possibility of me accidentally  _ killing  _ you!” Even he could hear the worry in his own voice.

“I know you’re angry right now, I understand,” Phil said gently, completely different to how he’d been mere seconds ago. His other hand joined Dan’s, his thumb stroking over the back of Dan’s hand to calm him down.

“I’m not angry,” Dan shot back, interrupting whatever else Phil had wanted to add, “I’m fucking  _ furious _ , Phil. Don’t  _ ever  _ do that again!”

“I won’t,” Phil said, “I promise.”

Dan nodded, the tension that had build up during their conversation – if it could be called that rather than a worried shouting match – dissolving, despite knowing that Phil would break his promise without a second thought if a similar situation arose. To be honest though, he couldn’t blame Phil. He would do the exact same in his position. 

All of a sudden, another wave of dizziness hit him, and before he knew what’d happened, he could feel Phil’s arms around him once again, steadying him.

“You should’ve stayed in bed,” he said fondly and Dan could feel Phil smiling where he had his head buried in the junction between his neck and shoulder. 

“I hate you,” Dan murmured, closing his eyes for a short moment to calm down. Even with his still dimmed senses, the smell of Phil was just short of overwhelming. 

“I know,” Phil replied softly.    
Despite everything that had happened – the rocky beginning of their relationship, Dan almost dying, Dan being afraid of having killed Phil (though he would vehemently deny that should anyone ask) – he was glad he’d finally accepted that he liked Phil. Having him in his arms, warm and comforting, was all that he’d never even realised he’d been missing in the first place.

“This is cute and all, but could you two please come to the table and eat?” PJ suddenly piped up. “I’m kinda hungry.”

Dan couldn’t help but laugh at that. Trust PJ to treat this situation like any other, with a funny attitude. 

When he looked at Phil just as they both let go of each other, he saw him smile. It made Dan breathe a sigh of relief at seeing him happy again – the way Phil should always be, even if Dan sometimes pretended that it annoyed the heck out of him.

It wasn’t long after they’d sat down – next to each other, of course; Dan was probably not going to leave Phil’s side for the next few hours just to make sure he really was alive and not a figment of his imagination – that Louise brought up the seriousness of the their situation, destroying the carefree atmosphere PJ had created.

“We should let the council know about what happened.”

Dan stopped sipping on his blood bottle, a queasy feeling taking place in his stomach that had nothing to do with the liquid he’d been consuming.

“I agree,” Sophie chimed in from next to Dan. “What happened was a serious attack that could’ve ended badly.”

“ _ No _ ,” Dan said loudly, before he’d even consciously decided to do so. Louise immediately opened her mouth to disagree, but he kept on talking. “I think you all remember what happens to humans who’ve learnt of our existence. There’s no way in hell we can let them know Phil was involved at all, otherwise we all face consequences. And don’t even think about lying,” Dan pointedly looked at Louise, “they’ll know and it’ll come back and bite us in the arse later.”

“Dan,” PJ said, and Dan already hated how reasonable he sounded just saying his name. “We can’t simply ignore what’s happened. If those hunters knew where to find you, I’m sure they’re aware of the others vampires in town. We’re putting everyone in danger by not saying anything.”

“We could lie, and don’t say we can’t,” Louise said, pointing at Dan. “No one of us is going to mention Phil. It’ll be fine.”

Dan wanted to disagree. The thing was, he understood the necessity of letting the council know about the attack. Despite not liking being around other people, he didn’t want any more vampires (or humans for that matter) to get hurt and he certainly didn’t want to be responsible for anybody’s death. But he couldn’t lose Phil, not after what they’d gone through.  

“It’ll be fine.” Phil sounded so sure of his words, it made Dan want so badly to believe him, but he knew from experience that lying almost always made things worse. And Phil didn’t even know what he was getting himself into.

“Even if they find out, I’m sure the consequences wouldn’t be too bad, right?”

Dan turned to look at Phil, whose gaze was already on him. He was smiling slightly but Dan could see worry in his eyes.

“You’d be sentenced to death, Phil,” Dan said, fully intending to put venom in his voice and utterly failing. He used to be so good at keeping his emotions in check around Phil, but not anymore.

“I– what?” Phil’s smile fell and his eyes widened in shock. Dan could hear his pulse speeding up and his heart beating faster.

“The consequence would be either for me to kill or to turn you and, I know, the final decision is yours, but I wouldn’t be happy with either of those options.” That put it mildly but Dan didn’t want to scare Phil anymore than he already had. It had to be difficult for him to even think about getting turned, considering he hadn’t even known of vampire’s existence two days ago.

“I, um,” Phil started to say, taking a few seconds to think about how he felt in regards to this whole thing. “I think we should deal with that when it comes to it.”

“No,  _ Phil _ , you don’t–“

“ _ Dan _ ,” Phil said with emphasis, interrupting him. “Even if they don’t come after the other vampires, they could try killing you again when they realise they didn’t succeed the first time. Or me, now that I think about it, since they obviously saw me with you. They won’t stop, and as much as it pains me to say this, this isn’t just about you or me, this is about everyone you know.”

Phil was right,  _ of course _ he was, but that didn’t mean that Dan was particularly happy about it. In fact, he was quite displeased with the outcome of all of this and wished he’d tried to fight the vampire hunters the first time he’d encountered them.

“Fine,” he grumbled, setting down his blood bottle. He wasn’t hungry anymore. “But we’re not letting them know of Phil,” he added with finality, looking at everyone sitting at the table.

“Of course,” PJ replied, shooting a small smile towards Dan, probably as a thank you for cutting this discussion short by agreeing, which wasn’t a usual thing for Dan to do. “I think we all have an interest in Phil not getting killed.”

Dan could feel Phil tense up beside him, so he slid his hand under the table to squeeze his thigh. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it had to be like for Phil to be thrown into the deep end of this. Dan couldn’t fully remember what it’d been like being human, but one thing that had never left him since his mortal days was the fear of dying. Sure, he’d already died once but that had been different – he’d still  _ existed _ afterwards, and that hadn’t got rid of his fear, it had only made it worse. If he died now, he’d truly be gone, and while he knew that he’d rather turn Phil than let him die, he thought he could understand how afraid Phil really was. Death was permanent and that was not something he could or wanted to envision for Phil.

“I think you should rest,” Sophie said, pulling Dan from his thoughts. He realised that the others had continued talking while he’d been kind of creepily staring at Phil.

“Yeah,” he replied absentmindedly, reaching for Phil’s hand and letting their fingers intertwine. He’d never been one to overly show affection in front of other people, but considering he’d thought he’d accidentally killed Phil, he was allowed to be a bit sappy in his opinion.

Phil couldn’t remember which way his room had been, so Dan took him to the one he’d woken up in. Everything was exactly like Dan had left it, including the needle he’d pulled out of his arm, and he hurried to put everything aside. He didn’t want Phil to worry anymore than he already had and, considering his earlier reaction, he’d not seen Dan before their reunion in the dining room, meaning he hadn’t seen the state Dan’d been in. 

Only after Dan had sunk down on the bed, his back resting comfortably on the mountain of pillows stacked against the headboard, he realised that he hadn’t even asked Phil if he wanted to stay here in the first place.

“Is, um, is this okay?” he asked, hating how insecure he sounded.

Phil looked caught for a second, standing next to the bed as if he wasn’t sure where exactly he was meant to be. “Er, yeah?”

“It’s okay if it’s not, you know,” Dan said after a few seconds of silence, lowering his gaze. “I’d understand if you wanted to go. This isn’t what you signed up for, after all.”

He wasn’t only talking about their situation now, he was giving Phil the option to go and leave Dan’s world of mythical – or well, not so mythical after all – creatures and the occasional death threat, to live his life without having a blood-sucking boyfriend. After all, he hadn’t known about that rather significant fact until the day before.

Phil, apparently, knew what Dan was doing, as he quite suddenly clambered up on the bed and let himself fall beside Dan, their thighs touching.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his voice strong and certain. “I don’t care that you’re a vampire.”

“You say that now bu–“

“No,” Phil interrupted him. “I mean, yes, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that vampires exist and that you’ve apparently lived alongside us for years, but just because you don’t have a heartbeat doesn’t change who you are. You’ll still try to beat me on Mario Kart, you’ll still marathon animes and get sad when you’ve finished them, you’ll still text me complaining about other people. You are still  _ you _ .”

Phil furrowed his brows as he picked on a loose thread on his shirt, but his gaze stayed firmly on Dan, like he was ready to further defend his view should Dan disagree.

“I–“ Dan started, not ready to continue where he’d wanted to go. Despite everything that had happened, he couldn’t quite believe Phil was still here. So instead of saying things he couldn’t put into words yet, he reached out and grabbed Phil’s hand, tugging it away from his shirt.

“I guess you have a lot of questions?”

“Um, I, yeah?” Phil looked at their hands, not surprised at Dan’s obvious change of subject, and then used his other hand to fumble around with his shirt. “I, uh, you can obviously eat normal food, so you’re not like the, uh, usual vampires, right?”

“You’ve observed correctly,” Dan said with a smile. “Doesn’t mean that we don’t vomit from some food, though, just like humans.”

“Well, I’m glad that my hot chocolates have always agreed with you,” Phil replied, a small smile forming on his lips.

“So far,” Dan retorted, grinning widely. He was glad that they were getting back into their routinely bantering; it was familiar territory and something he was better at with dealing than emotional outbursts.

Phil spluttered indignantly. “I’ll have you know I’m the best hot chocolate maker in the entire city.”

“Right,” Dan said slowly, “and what was that two weeks ago when Stacey had to come and take my cup away before I’d even managed to take a sip?”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Phil defended himself, blushing heavily. “It’s not my fault you’re-“ he gestured towards Dan “um, well, you’re you,” he finished lamely.

“So what you’re saying is I’m so distracting you can’t concentrate on your work?” Dan raised an eyebrow.

“No,” Phil simply said, without elaborating. “You’re not sparkling all over, after all.”

“Oh God,” Dan moaned, accepting that Phil didn’t want to give in to his teasing, “please don’t tell me you’ve actually read Twilight.”

“As if you haven’t read or watched it just to satiate your curiosity,” Phil said, pointing at Dan. “Admit it, Edward is your role model.”

Dan grimaced. “I’d rather stab myself in the eye than be anything like  _ him _ .”

“You wouldn’t want to sparkle in the sun? Or stand over my bed and watch me when I sleep?” Phil said, looking like he was about to burst into laughter every second. “Wait, you don’t do that, do you?”

“Do what?  _ Sparkle _ ? Phil, you’ve seen me in sunlight, you know I don’t sparkle.” Dan rolled his eyes.

“No, not that,” Phil clarified. “The watching me when I sleep bit.”

“ _ What _ ? Of course I don’t watch you sleep!” Dan exclaimed, unconsciously squeezing Phil’s hand a bit too much. “Why would I- nevermind, I don’t want to know why you’d even think that. But I don’t. I need sleep, too, I wouldn’t give that up for anyone.”

Phil’s eyes widened at that and he leant towards Dan in obvious interest. “Oh, you do?”

“Yeah,” Dan replied. “Did you not see the giant coffin when you visited me?”

“Wha- you’re making fun of me.” Phil frowned but Dan could see that he was trying not to laugh in the way the corners of his mouth kept twitching.

“Kind of. The part with the coffin is a lie but vampires do actually sleep,” Dan said, his thumb stroking over Phil’s hand. He knew that holding his hand must’ve become uncomfortably cold at this point, but Phil didn’t seem perturbed by it.

“How come you can walk in broad daylight? I mean, not that I don’t like it, but how come every legend about vampires says differently?”

“I don’t know.” Dan shrugged. That was something he’d also thought about a lot, but the only satisfying solution he’d come up with was that lifetimes ago, someone had spread that rumour so that everyone’s attention would be drawn off vampires and they could continue to live in peace among humans.

“Well, the part with the crying blood instead of tears is definitely false,” Phil concluded a moment later when Dan didn’t add anything.

Dan looked up at him at that, squinting suspiciously. “You’ve never even seen a vampire cry.”

Stretching his legs out in front of him, Phil snorted quietly. “Dan, you’re really not as subtle as you think you are. Don’t think I didn’t notice you crying while Yuri and Victor exchanged their rings.”

“I didn’t  _ cry _ ,” Dan defended himself, even though he knew it was a lost cause. “There was something in my eye.”

“Yeah, those are called tears,” Phil said with a laugh.

“Shut up, your mum is called tears,” Dan grumbled, almost able to stay serious until he looked at Phil and saw the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Phil then laughed, his tongue doing the poking out of his mouth thing that Dan definitely hadn’t been watching intensely everytime it’d happened.

“Your mum doesn’t make sense,” Dan retorted, earning another bout of laughter from Phil.

“Keep my mum out of this,” Phil said, still giggling, but he bumped his shoulder into Dan’s in an affectionate gesture. Dan didn’t know how he’d been able to resist Phil this long. Honestly, he’d been a lost cause from the beginning.

Suddenly, their conversation turned serious again as Phil’s gaze dropped to their intertwined fingers. He was biting his bottom lip, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if he should.

“Hey,” Dan said softly, reaching out and nudging Phil’s chin upwards, so that he was looking at Dan again. “You can say whatever you want, I promise I’m not going to be upset about it. I know how difficult this must be for you.”

It took a lot of bravery for Dan to say this, but judging from the scared expression on Phil’s face, it was the necessary thing to do for him. He  _ never _ wanted Phil to feel uncomfortable or unsafe in his company, no matter where their relationship took them.

“I–“ Phil swallowed, still looking conflicted. “What does this mean for us?”

“You mean the part where I’m basically immortal?” Dan asked softly, not quite managing the teasing tone he’d meant to go for.

Phil nodded. “I’m not going anywhere, I still stand with that. But what–“ He broke off, his gaze flitting away from Dan.

“But what?” Dan prompted, squeezing Phil’s hand reassuringly.

“What happens when,” Phil started, his voice quiet and unsure, “when I get old while you stay the same?”

Dan couldn’t help but pause for a moment. If his heart had still been beating, it would probably have skipped a beat at this point. Phil’s words implied that he intended to be with Dan for quite another while. Despite that however, the other aspect Phil had addressed – his mortality – had been the whole foundation of Dan’s reluctance to open himself up to Phil in the first place. Hearing Phil ask him about it so bluntly made something inside him clench painfully. He wasn’t ready to deal with the possibility of turning Phil or him dying, not yet.

“We’ll– let’s not think about that for now, okay?” It pained him not to know what Phil wanted –  if he was able to even consider staying by Dan’s side for eternity – but at the same time, Dan selfishly wanted to ignore even the possibility of Phil not being there forever. 

Phil frowned at hearing Dan’s words. “No. We should talk about this,” he said quietly, still not looking at Dan. 

Dan was about to protest, to find any kind of excuse to avoid this topic, when Phil spoke up again. “We’ll have to talk about it eventually. Might as well do it now.”

“I–” Dan started and then reconsidered as Phil finally looked at him again. If possible, he seemed as scared and unsure about this as Dan felt. 

“Alright, okay. Well, what, uh, what do you think?” Dan asked, not wanting to go first. He still couldn’t quite believe everything Phil had said earlier. He’d never wanted to be this emotionally vulnerable.

“I, uh, I don’t know,” he admitted eventually, the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown. He was playing with the hem of his shirt again, and in that moment Dan realised that while Phil had taken the onslaught of world-changing surprise and information well so far, he’d reached his limit. And despite Phil having been the one to insist on talking about this, it wasn’t fair that Dan was pushing him to decide about something he’d never really had the chance to properly think about. 

“Look, Phil,” Dan started, grabbing hold of his other hand as well and shuffling around so that he was sitting cross-legged in front of him. “I know you think you need answers right now, but this isn’t the right time. Deciding about whether you want to live out your life as it is now or if you want to be turned is not something that should be taken lightly. You should have the chance to properly think about what you want, okay? And I’ll still be here when you’ve decided, and I promise, whatever you choose, I’ll accept it. But I don’t want you to regret your decision. I want you to be completely happy with whatever you do.”

Dan definitely felt more vulnerable than he liked after he’d finished speaking. He’d never been good with putting his feelings out there, even if they were only for Phil to see. 

“Thank you,” Phil breathed, and suddenly Dan had an armful of him, falling backwards on the sheets as a result of Phil knocking into him. He couldn’t stop the laughter bubbling up and out of him as he felt Phil smiling into his neck. He circled his arms around him and held onto him tightly, not wanting to let go of this happy moment. Maybe if he closed his eyes, this would last forever, maybe he didn’t have to relinquish this bubble of him and Phil being together, without responsibilities, without fear, without a thought of mortality. 

Of course, the moment couldn’t last like Dan wanted it to. Soon enough, Phil sat up and, upon realising he was literally straddling Dan, scrambled of him, blushing as he did so. 

Before Dan could do anything other than smile stupidly at Phil, he was yawning, not able to repress it.

“You should rest,” Phil said, and Dan wanted to protest – he wasn’t even that tired – but then he was yawning again and had to begrudgingly admit that Phil was probably right. Despite the high amounts of blood he’d been given, his body still craved sleep.

Phil climbed off the bed, looking reluctant – about what exactly, Dan didn’t know. But what he did know was that he sure as hell didn’t want to be separated from Phil right now.

“Stay with me?” he asked quietly, afraid of what Phil’s answer might be.

He needn’t have worried though, because Phil instantly relaxed back onto the bed, his expression relieved when he faced Dan. “Of course.”

A few minutes later, they’d both stripped down to their boxers and t-shirts – Dan would’ve liked to get rid of that last one as well, but didn’t know if that was in Phil’s comfort zone – and were lying down, Phil on his back and Dan basically curled up around him. He buried his face in Phil’s neck, his blood’s smell, which was still as aromatic as ever, too tempting to resist. He wasn’t hungry for blood anymore so he didn’t run the risk of wanting to bite Phil but it was nice being able to smell him so unhindered anyway.

“Dan?” Phil asked, his hand coming up to run through Dan’s hair.

Dan only hummed in response, still nuzzling Phil’s neck. 

“Not that I mind or anything, but why are you so fascinated with my neck?”

If Dan hadn’t been able to detect the slight humour in Phil’s voice, he would’ve thought that Phil was scared by his actions. As it was, he simply smiled against Phil’s neck.

“It’s your blood. It’s very, uh, appealing,” Dan replied, not sure that that simple statement quite hit the truth.

“Is it now?” Phil huffed out a laugh. “What does it smell like?”

Dan thought about that for a moment. “It’s difficult to describe. I can obviously smell the metal but there’s an undertone of something else as well. It reminds me a lot of being at a beach, like, salty air,” he spoke into Phil’s neck, sure that was that when Phil didn’t answer for a few moments.

“Is it, like, different to how other people smell to you?”

Phil’s hand wandered downwards as he spoke, now massaging Dan’s neck in the most wonderful way. 

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Usually I don’t really pick up on people’s scents. I’ve learnt to block them out. But yours is kinda, I’d say, more prominent.”

“It doesn’t, uh, smell like other vampire?” Phil then asked, sounding tentative. 

“A bit, now that you’ve said it. Why?” Dan frowned but didn’t lift his head to look at Phil. He was so comfortable, he didn’t want to move one bit.

Phil noticeably stiffened underneath him, so Dan comfortingly let his hand wander up high on Phil’s neck, to play with a strand of his hair. 

“When you were… unconscious, Louise gave me some of her blood.”

The quiet way with Phil voiced those words made them sound like a question, as if he wasn’t sure he should say them in front of Dan. Was he afraid of Dan’s reaction? Or was there something else Phil wasn’t telling him? He pressed a hopefully reassuring kiss to Phil’s pulse point.

“She gave it to you so you’d heal faster,” he said, wondering if that was what Phil wanted to hear.

“Does that, like, cause any repercussions for me?” 

Dan lifted his head at that, to be able to look at Phil’s face, frowning all the while. “What do you mean?” 

Phil’s gaze flitted away. He did that a lot when he was unsure, so it seemed. “I mean, um, does that– does that mean her blood has any influence on me?”

Dan couldn’t help it, he was laughing before Phil had even fully finished his question. “What, you want to know if you’re going to have erotic dreams about Louise tonight?”

“Dan!” Phil exclaimed, blushing furiously. It made Dan laugh even harder, despite being able to see that he was embarrassed because Dan had hit the mark. 

“Don’t worry,” he managed to get out without having another laughing fit. “This isn’t True Blood. The only thing vampire blood does is healing you.”  

Phil’s cheeks still had a pink tint to them, but he looked relieved. “Good,” he said, and without further words pulled Dan down for a kiss. Phil’s lips were warm against his and for the first time, Dan wondered if it might be uncomfortable for Phil that his lips were quite the opposite of warm. 

“I wouldn’t want to dream about anyone other than you,” Phil breathed against his lips, and the thought disappeared. It was cheesy and if it had been anyone else but Phil saying it, Dan probably would’ve awkwardly smiled at them, but now he leant downwards, pressing his lips against Phil’s in another kiss. They continued like that for another while until Dan felt exhaustion tug at him and not soon after was pulled into a relaxing sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, I actually wrote most of this today.. sorry that it took me this long.. (I've been working on a lot of other things)
> 
> there's a lot of blood and stuff (explicit violence) in this chapter, hence why I've put the rating on explicit. If you're squirmish when it comes to stuff like that, don't read this. 
> 
> anyway, it's so fucking hot rn, so I'm gonna squeeze myself into the fridge so I won't melt
> 
> (also, this chapter is shit, but I wanted to finish it. There's only one more chapter to go as well as the epilogue)

Despite the fact that they’d almost died, creating the illusion of time having been halted, Phil had to begrudgingly accept that his life hadn’t been put on hold and that he needed to go back to his job eventually. He’d called in sick the day after the incident and while Stacey had come across as understanding and obliging, he knew that it was difficult finding someone to cover all of his shifts for a few days.

The fact that he wouldn’t be able to see Dan anyway, since he and PJ were going to go the council, made his reluctance to return to his own home dwindle even more. He had no desire whatsoever to stay in PJ and Sophie’s mansion on his own. While it might certainly feel like a home to them, it made Phil feel out of place. 

Returning home was a bit surreal, if he was being honest. After the stress of the last few days and having spent a great deal of time with Dan, getting to know him even more, it was weird to step foot into his cottage again, but at the same time it was also comforting to see that everything was as he’d left it. 

He had the last shift at work, so he spent the hours beforehand cleaning and tidying. For some reason, it was relaxing to do such mundane tasks and it gave him the opportunity to actually think about the events of the last few days. 

Dan had been nothing but gentle and understanding, telling Phil everything he wanted to know about his world - it was still kind of weird to think about Dan as someone who had lived over 200 years, who had seen more than Phil could imagine, who wanted to be with Phil  _ regardless _ . Despite everything that had happened though, Phil’s mind kept returning to two inherently intertwined things: soulmates and being turned. 

Obviously, Phil didn’t know for sure if he actually was Dan’s soulmate, but everything pointed in that direction. PJ had said that the human soulmate’s blood was more appealing to the vampire than other human’s blood, and Dan had told Phil that his blood was more prominent to him than anyone else’s. That didn’t necessarily mean _anything_ , though. It could just be coincidence and nothing more. Phil wouldn’t know unless he asked Dan, but he knew that he would never be able to do that. The risk of Dan confirming his fear was too great, and he meant too much to Phil to give up their relationship for getting to know something that shouldn’t even matter that much. 

So what if Phil wasn’t Dan’s soulmate. That didn’t change their feelings for each other. Phil only hoped that if Dan were to find his soulmate some day, he wouldn’t ditch Phil immediately, but he couldn’t imagine Dan to be such a disloyal person - especially if Phil decided to be turned to spend the rest of forever with Dan. 

Ever since he’d talked to Dan during that first night in PJ’s and Sophie’s home, Phil hadn’t been able to stop wondering what it’d be like being turned. He probably wouldn’t even be able to imagine the pain one had to endure in the process, and to be quite honest, he didn’t really want to. 

Sure, if everything went well, he could see himself spending his future with Dan - in whatever form - but it felt weird thinking that far ahead when their relationship hadn’t even fully started. Dan probably wasn’t even considering that an option yet. His reaction to Phil’s insistence of talking about it made sense in that context. He’d tried avoiding it since he wasn’t thinking of it as an option for now either. 

And still, Phil couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even at work he was confronted with it - well, not  _ quite _ . The moment Phil walked in through the door, Stacey had figured out that something had changed and proceeded to pester Phil until he told her about him and Dan - leaving out the part where Dan was a vampire and they’d almost died, of course. She was delighted, actually squealing and making Phil blush to the point where he felt hot and uncomfortable all over. 

The rest of the work day Stacey continued to make him talk about Dan and how they’d got together, not leaving Phil a minute to breathe. He was actually quite happy when he was finally able to leave and go home. He should’ve been all the more glad when he got a text from Dan saying that he was still busy, but it only made him more anxious. 

All he wanted was to cuddle up with Dan in front of the TV and not think about the future, to distance himself from the pressure of having to come to a decision regarding his life; he simply wanted to live in the moment, even if only for a little while until reality would catch up with him. Was that too much to ask?

 

***

 

Dan honestly wanted to rip his own ears out. If he had to listen to Mr I-am-an-important-part-of-this-council-so-you-better-listen-to-me (he’d paid no attention whatsoever when everyone had introduced themselves) bring in one more implication of Dan having made this whole story up, he’d actually go insane. At least the other council members took him seriously, which was probably due to PJ being there with him and confirming everything, if he was being honest. It helped though, so that was all that mattered.

They’d been at the council’s meeting place for over two hours at this point, after they’d almost got lost looking for the right room  _ twice  _ (and why did everyone seem to own a bloody mansion except Dan?). 

“I think we should hold a meeting, informing everyone about these hunters,” Charlie, one of the few council members Dan actually liked, said. Despite her advanced age of over seven hundred years - if Dan remembered correctly - she was always strangely up-to-date. 

“Yes, excellent proposition!” Harry chimed in. He was an older-looking gentleman, who was still stuck in the last century, especially when it came to his clothes; he liked to wear a topper at all times. At least most people thought he was only dressing up on the rare occasion he went outside, but Dan always wondered why he refused to try new things.

“Is this really necessary?” the guy said, who Dan couldn’t for the life of him remember the name of, sounding bored and slightly annoyed that Dan was actually getting attention for this. 

“Yes, I believe it is,” Harry replied and looked over towards his colleague, as if to make him shut up through eye contact. Dan couldn’t help but smirk at that.

“As this is a very urgent matter, the day after tomorrow seems appropriate, doesn’t it? We could use that old building at the edge of town,” Carissa said, who looked like an ordinary forty year old lady, but was in reality older than every vampire in the room.

“The one we held that meeting in a year ago?” Charlie asked and Carissa immediately nodded.

“Yes. It won’t be difficult to arrange, even on such a short notice. However,” she paused there, probably for dramatic effect, Dan guessed, “you’ll need to help us.” With those words, she looked at him and PJ. 

“Um,” Dan said dumbfounded. He’d never in his entire existence organised anything. 

“It’d be an honour,” PJ spoke up next to him. He sounded polite but Dan had known him long enough to hear slight annoyance in his voice. 

“That’s settled then!”

Dan sighed. It was going to be a long day.

 

***

 

“Why does it not surprise me that they made us organise everything?” PJ asked while dragging a chair into the right position. They were almost done, despite having had to do everything themselves. So much for much  _ helping _ . 

Louise was at the end of the room, probably not doing much, if Dan was correct. He couldn’t blame her though. She wouldn’t even have had to help them so it was okay for her to not want to move anymore at this point. Dan desperately wanted to just sit down on the chair he was currently carrying, but knew that if he rested now, he’d never get back up again.

To make matters worse, he’d not seen Phil since the day before, due to all the organising they’d had to do and Phil having been busy with work as well. Despite Dan loving to have a lot of time for himself, being away from Phil for such a long time made him a bit antsy. He’d definitely need to see him after this damn meeting was finally over.

“I don’t even know anymore what it feels like not to carry chairs around,” Dan complained in lieu of answering PJ’s question. “I’ll probably have chair-shaped arms by the time this is over.”

“You didn’t even carry half of these,” PJ said with an eye-roll as he gestured towards the rows and rows of chairs.  

“It’s not my fault I’m slower than you,” Dan huffed, even though he knew PJ was only teasing him. 

“Sure.” 

With a loud bang, Dan let another chair fall to the ground, glad that it didn’t break upon impact. They were almost done at this point, which he really couldn’t be happier about. He’d never known he’d be able to be so glad to go back to his regular life of drinking hot chocolates and trying to write. Well, and spending time with Phil, even if that was something Dan would have to get used to in the long run. 

After they’d finally finished everything - Louise was still sitting somewhere at the back, probably playing some kind of game on her phone - it didn’t take long at all for everyone to start showing up. Dan had wisely picked a spot somewhere to the right but not directly at the front, so he could still quickly make his way there should he be asked to present his point of view, but wouldn’t be in the spotlight the entire time. As soon as Stuart walked in, Dan mentally patted himself on the back, because,  _ of course _ , Stuart chose to sit in the front row. Dan suspected that he was trying to get into the council. 

When everyone was there, Carissa started by informing why they’d all been called in to this spontaneous meeting and Dan promptly tuned out. He’d heard this story enough times, considering  _ he’d been there _ . He really didn’t need to again, especially because it reminded him all the more that Phil actually could’ve died. It would’ve been Dan’s fault entirely and he didn’t think he would’ve been able to live with the fact that this time he’d been responsible for another loved one’s death.

It was only when there was the loud sound of a heavy door banging into a wall that he refocused on what was going on. There was a sudden silence while almost everyone turned to look in the direction the noise had come from. Only seconds later, four people entered the room. Even from the distance Dan was immediately able to recognise all of them. 

He felt frozen in his seat, air stuck in his throat that he’d breathed out of habit, and he could only stare as they made their way to the front. All the while, there was a deadly silence, no one daring to speak. Or maybe everyone was just too surprised to say anything. Either way, the silence was broken, when David finally spoke up.

“Hello everyone!” he cheered. He was holding a knife to the throat of the person in front of him, dragging them with him. 

Seeing the fear in their eyes made Dan’s throat close up to the point where he was sure he’d never be able to say something. He was glued to his seat, unable to do anything, when blue eyes found his.

“Phil,” he whispered, his name coming out broken, making Dan hurt all over.

A vampire at the front got up when David and his two lackeys made their way there, but David only pressed the knife closer to Phil’s skin, shaking his head. 

“You wouldn’t want me to kill this innocent human, now would you?” he said, barking out a short laugh when the vampire sat down again. 

“Now, here’s the thing. You,” he gestured around the room, “are all abominations. And frankly, we’ve had enough of you blood-sucking monsters. So this is what’s going to happen. In exchange for this human-”

He was interrupted by another vampire standing up in Dan’s row. “Why should we even care about this human?” he asked, loud murmurs of agreement coming from other vampires. “One human life in exchange for all of ours sounds pretty good to me.”

David glared at the vampire and opened his mouth to reply, when another vampire spoke up. “This again, Harold? We’ve talked about this. Human lives are as valuable as our own. We can’t just let them kill that man.”

“Why not?” Harold, apparently, shot back. His simple question sparked an argument increasing in volume. Several other vampires joined in, making it impossible to even understand what each person was saying.

All the while, all Dan could do was stare at Phil, who was looking right back at him, deep-seated fear evident in his eyes. He didn’t even want to think about how the last few hours must’ve been for Phil or what they’d done to him exactly before coming here.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang and everyone stopped talking. One of the vampire hunters had his arm raised, a gun in his hand. “Shut up!” he yelled, even though everyone was already quiet.

“Well, that was quite unnecessary,” the vampire to Dan’s left muttered.

“I think at least one of you wouldn’t want this one to die,” David scoffed, roughly shoving Phil forward before yanking him back.

“Isn’t that right,  _ Dan _ ?”

Everyone turned to look at Dan, but Dan couldn’t tear his gaze away from Phil.

“Dan?” someone asked. “Everyone knows Dan doesn’t like humans.”

In any other situation Dan probably would’ve laughed at that. He didn’t like humans, that much was true, but he did like Phil and he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t mind spending Phil’s entire life with him.

“Please,” he said, standing up on wobbly legs. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh yes, we do.” David grinned at him, a devilish expression on his face. “The only way we can keep on living is for all of you to die. There’s no place here for monsters like you.”

“ _ Please _ , I’ll do whatever you want, just please let hi-”

He was interrupted by David’s sudden scream. “ _ Stop _ !”

Dan turned to look to where David’s gaze was focused. Stuart had stood up and slowly started walking towards the hunters. 

“Stop, or I’ll kill him!” David screeched, but Stuart simply ignored him. He shot a quick look towards Dan, who was unable to do anything. He was too far away to physically stop Stuart from whatever his plan was.

“Please Stuart, stop,” Dan pleaded.

“You won’t,” Stuart replied calmly, completely ignoring Dan. He was still continuing his way towards the hunters.

“I will!” David shouted back. “Take another step and he’s dead.”

There was a short moment where it seemed like Stuart would actually heed David’s words, but then he continued his way towards the hunters. Dan could see the exact second in which David decided to make his threats true. 

A determined expression came over his face and before Dan could do anything, he pressed the knife into Phil’s skin, underneath his jaw, blood immediately pouring out. 

Everything turned into chaos. 

Dan shoved the empty seat next to him out of the way and sprinted to the front, where David had dropped Phil, who was grabbing at his throat, blood flowing through his fingers. Dan fought his way through the vampires who were swarming to the hunters. Shots and screams were filling the air but Dan couldn’t focus on anything else but Phil. 

He skidded to a halt next to him, immediately sinking down on his knees, pulling Phil’s hands away to replace them with his own. Judging by the flow of blood, one of the main arteries had been severed, while the windpipe was undamaged. Phil would bleed out, sooner rather than later.

“Dan,” Phil breathed, his voice shaky with fear.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Dan tried to reassure him, but his hands trembled so much that he couldn’t get a firm grip on Phil’s throat to hinder the bleed. “You’re  _ fine _ , you’ll live.”

The strong and sweet smell of Phil’s blood was almost overwhelming at this point, Phil’s shirt being soaked with it.

“Dan, I want to,” Phil started, grimacing at the obvious pain he was feeling. “I’m in, I’m in love with you. Wanted you to know.”

“God,  _ Phil _ .” Dan could feel tears stinging his eyes, but he furiously blinked them away. This was not the time, he needed to focus. “I love you, too, okay? But you’re  _ not dying _ .”

He used one hand to brush Phil’s fringe out of his eyes, smearing blood everywhere. He knew that at this point he was in denial of the obvious, but even the thought of this being the end brought tears to his eyes. He couldn’t lose Phil.

“Dan,” Phil said, the word coming out quietly. “ _ Please _ .”

“I don’t,” Dan started. A thought came into his head, something that he hadn’t wanted to consider but was the only option he had now. 

“Phil, I need you to listen to me,” he urged, as Phil’s eyes continuously looked more and more unfocused. It hurt but he had to say the words he wished he never would’ve had to utter. “Do you want me to turn me?”

Instead of answering, Phil just whimpered, the sound of his suffering felt like a physical stab to Dan’s heart. 

“I’m going to take care of you, okay? You’ll be okay,” he whispered softly, as Phil’s eyes slipped shut and his body went slack. Dan knew that he didn’t have much time until Phil would’ve completely bled out and his heart would stop indefinitely. 

He lifted his hand from the wound, more blood making its way out, and took a deep breath before leaning down and starting to suck out the rest of the blood. He’d never done this before, but he knew how turning someone worked - every vampire did. 

He didn’t dare look at Phil’s face when there was no more blood and instead focused on the floor as he bit into the underside of his wrist, his blood joining Phil’s on his already blood-soaked t-shirt. He quickly opened Phil’s mouth by grabbing his jaw and pulling on it, then pressed his wrist to it, so that enough blood would get into Phil’s system. This time, he couldn’t avoid looking at his face and he had to bite his lip in order not to break out in tears at what he saw. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Phil was supposed to  _ live _ and to be able to enjoy all the human things Dan couldn’t relate to anymore. He shouldn’t be lying in Dan’s arms, limp and lifeless. And all of this was Dan’s fault. If he hadn’t given in, this never would’ve happened. Phil would be in the café or at home, drinking coffee and reading a book,  _ being happy _ .

“Dan.” Suddenly, PJ was by his side, tugging at Dan’s wrist that was still pressed to Phil’s mouth. “That’s enough.”

“No, he,” Dan didn’t really know what he wanted to say, just that he couldn’t stop. He needed Phil to come back to him. 

“You’re giving him too much,” PJ insisted and this time, Dan let him drag his arm away. It should’ve been a bit weird when PJ licked over the puncture wounds on his wrist to stop the bloodflow, but Dan couldn’t care less at that moment.

“I can’t,” Dan tried again, but he was crying too much to get more words out. PJ wordlessly put his arms around him and pulled Dan to his chest, stroking over his curly hair, trying to calm him down. 

It hadn’t even been a few minutes, Dan still holding onto Phil while kept up the one-armed hug, that Dan noticed there was no more commotion. He didn’t care what had happened to the hunters but when one of the council members came up to him, he wished there were still some sort of distraction going on. 

“Daniel Howell,” the vampire said - it was the one Dan still couldn’t remember the name of. “I need you to remove yourself from the human.”

“No,” Dan immediately protested, shrugging out of PJ’s embrace and cradling Phil’s body to his chest. 

“You’ve broken the law, specifically paragraph 20. I have to ask you to remove yourself from the human and give yourself over into our custody.”

“No,  _ please _ .” Dan held Phil even closer to himself, not planning on letting go anytime soon.

“You’re making this more difficult for all of us,” the vampire said, beginning to sound annoyed. Another council member, Harry, came up to them, looking sympathetic. He gestured to someone behind Dan and before he knew what was happening, two people had grabbed his arms and dragged him up and away from Phil. He tried struggling, but the loss of blood combined with the sudden exhaustion he was feeling, made it very uneffective.

“Please, don’t hurt him. It’s not his fault. Please,” he pleaded desperately, while Harry and the other guy that he couldn’t stand bent down to pick up Phil. 

Dan was dragged away before he could see that PJ glared at them until they retreated and picked Phil up himself. Not soon after, he was thrown into a van, his hands cuffed behind his back and his entire body aching. 

Despite the continuous stream of tears rolling down his face, he fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams plagued by blood and death and pale skin.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are appreciated
> 
>  [my tumblr](https://tsingadark.tumblr.com)


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